Iron Master

by Jennifer Ashley

  Peigi wasn’t certain about this theory, but she had nothing to lose by trying. The silver knot was warm from Stuart’s hand and quivered faintly with magic, mirroring the hum she perceived from the gate.

  Maybe frequency was the key. Perhaps when the sound waves from the gate and the medallion either melded or canceled each other out, the gate opened.

  Peigi held the medallion high, closing her eyes. She could hear better this way, letting the Shifter in her listen.

  Earlier this year, Donny had become obsessed with learning how to play guitar. Cormac had brought him one and taught Donny to tune it.

  When Cormac plucked two strings—one fretted, one open—to produce the same note on each string, the vibrations between the two produced a faint wah wah wah sound. That discordance was more pronounced the more out of tune the strings were to each other, and disappeared when the two were perfectly tuned.

  Peigi heard a similar sound between the gate and medallion. Now to figure out how to tune it. Peigi couldn’t simply turn a nut to loosen or tighten a string—she had to loosen or tighten a gate.

  “Ben?” Peigi called. “Seriously, we need your help.” She thought about how they’d unstuck Stuart from the gate in the basement. “Maybe Matt and Kyle too, if Misty will let them go. They seem to navigate gates without any problem. Also, we’re going to need a Guardian. Unfortunately.” Her words fell away, flat against the damp. “Tell the cubs I love them. If you can hear me, wee ones … I love you.”

  Her words caught on a sob. Stuart put his arm around her and drew her close.

  The dissonance surged, pushing on Peigi’s eardrums, and then abruptly the two notes merged into one clear, sweet tone.

  On top of that came noise, voices talking over each other, each one rising higher to be heard. Over that sounded a stronger, more gravelly voice, far more frustrated.

  “If you will all let me hear myself think …” Graham bellowed. “Matt, Kyle, come back here. The rest of you sit down.”

  “Oh.” The voice was Ben’s. “I think it’s too late.”

  Three cubs charged out of the mist, two wolves and a small grizzly bear. They slammed into Stuart and Peigi, and all five went over in a tangled heap of fur, excitement, and fervent face licking.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Settle down!” Graham roared. “Aw, damn it, I never wanted to see this place again.”

  Peigi pulled herself up, the grizzly cub firmly in her arms. “Noelle, what are you doing here?”

  The two wolf cubs rolled from Stuart and shifted as they gained their feet. “She said we had to rescue you, rescue you,” Matt and Kyle babbled, one overlapping the other. “Do you need us to rescue you, Uncle Stuart?”

  “I do now.” Stuart sat up, brushing wet leaves from his tunic. “Two wolves just knocked me down.”

  Matt looked pleased with himself. “We like to knock people down,” Kyle said.

  Peigi hugged Noelle, who was nuzzling a cold wet nose into Peigi’s neck. “What happened?” Peigi asked Graham. “Why are you here?”

  Graham stared at her in disbelief. “What do you mean, why? You were shouting down your hall to Ben, that’s why. Telling him to bring Matt and Kyle. He came barging into my house saying he needed them, but like hell I was letting them go without me.”

  “Which he explained loudly.” Ben emerged from the mists carrying a duffel bag. “You said you needed a Guardian, so I called Neal. You guys okay?”

  Peigi blinked. “It was like fifteen seconds after I said that when you crashed in. Oh, wait, must be the time difference.”

  “Yeah, jet lag has nothing on ley-line lag,” Ben said. “Why do you need a Guardian? What happened?”

  “Tough battle,” Stuart said. “Dead Shifters. Can’t leave them.”

  Graham scowled but Peigi saw the flare of grief in his eyes. “Stupid …” He cleared his throat. “Well, come on. We’re rescuing you. Let’s go.” He swung back to the empty mist he’d entered through, finding nothing. “Shit.”

  “Ben, we need you to talk to Cian before we go.” Stuart sounded unworried that the gate seemed to be closed again. “He needs a huge favor.”

  Ben went wary. “I can’t donate any body parts. Physiology not compatible.”

  “No body parts,” Peigi promised. “The favor is, can you ask Lady Aisling to talk to Cian? Or have Jaycee ask her?”

  Ben grew still more wary. “Why?”

  “The karmsyern has been destroyed,” Stuart said flatly. “I’m going to ask her to make another one.”

  “The fuck.” Ben’s mouth dropped open. “Destroyed? Are you sure?”

  “Saw it ourselves,” Peigi told him unhappily.

  “How can it be destroyed?” Ben’s disbelief hurtled itself at them. “Who the hell could do that?”

  “Lady Aisling’s husband,” Peigi said. “At least, he claimed to be her husband.”

  Ben’s outraged perplexity died in shock. “Lady Aisling is married?”

  “Apparently.”

  “Shit.” Ben thumped his palm to his head. “I gotta process this.”

  “Can you talk to Cian while you process?” Stuart asked. “The karmsyern …”

  “Yeah, I know what the karmsyern is.” Ben ran his fingers through his damp hair. “But you don’t need Lady Aisling for that. No Tuil Erdannan made the karmsyern.”

  “How do you know?” Peigi demanded. “Who did?”

  Ben assumed an expression that held embarrassment, sorrow, and a tiny bit of pride. “That would be me.”

  Stuart wasn’t often shocked, but he stilled, his eyes becoming very focused. “You did?”

  Ben nodded. “It’s one of the reasons the hoch alfar wanted to be rid of me. I got in the way of their world domination plans.” He stared off into the mists, his outrage returning. “All that work, all that magic, all those lives, and a Tuil Erdannan just flicks his fingers …”

  “The karmsyern was made a thousand or so years ago,” Stuart said, dumbfounded.

  “I was young.” Ben opened his hand. “Full of myself. I never thought the hoch alfar would wipe out all goblins everywhere for it.” He shook his head. “When I catch up with that Tuil Erdannan … Lady Aisling’s husband, you say?”

  His awe and fear of the Tuil Erdannan was departing in the face of his anger. Peigi had the feeling that if he did find the man who’d destroyed the karmsyern, that Tuil Erdannan would be in for a rude awakening.

  Ben had power, which he kept buried most of the time, like Stuart. But when Ben ever let it out … Peigi wasn’t certain whether she was eager to see that or not.

  Graham stared at Ben. “Just when I think I’ve figured you out …”

  “I have a lot of history,” Ben said. “You know, hidden depths.”

  Peigi, her arms full of bear cub, reached to Ben and touched his broad shoulder. “You risked everything to help others. That was wonderful.”

  “Yeah well.” Ben cleared his throat. “It wasn’t the only reason the hoch alfar came after us, but one reason. It showed them how powerful we were.”

  Stuart had recovered himself enough to give Ben a glance of compassion. “I hate to ask you to do it again, but the hoch alfar will wipe out my people if you don’t. They’ve already started.”

  Ben growled under his breath in a language Peigi had never heard, ending in a snarled hoch alfar. Then he heaved a resigned sigh.

  “I’m going to need iron that’s as pure as can be found. Some Fae gold, if any is lying around, some silver, dried sage, and a forge to work on. Oh, and beer. Lots and lots of beer.”

  Ben had brought clothes for the cubs in the duffel bag. Noelle went with Peigi behind a tree to slide into sweat pants and shirt, but Kyle and Matt argued.

  “We don’t mind running around Faerie like this,” Matt declared in his ear-shattering voice. “We’ve done it before.”

  “No!” Graham bellowed.

  “Please?” Peigi asked them.

  Matt and Kyle ceased chasing each other in cir
cles as Peigi spoke, grabbed clothes from the duffel, and pulled them on.

  “I don’t know how you do that,” Graham growled.

  “It’s a magic she has.” Stuart sent Peigi a glance that had her wanting to say to hell with the hoch alfar and rush him home.

  When they reached the camp, Stuart took Ben to Cian, and the three began speaking together in dokk alfar.

  Peigi did not want Noelle to see Michael and wished Ben and Graham had left her at home, but she likely had rushed after Matt and Kyle before anyone could stop her. Peigi didn’t know how much Noelle remembered of Michael, and how much trauma encountering him again would cause.

  Before she could decide what to do, Michael came out of the tent where he was tending to, and reaming out, the wounded Shifters. He halted when he saw Peigi with cubs, puzzled, no recognition in his eyes.

  Peigi’s anger at him wound up all over again. He didn’t know Noelle, one of his tracker’s cubs, probably hadn’t ever noticed her when she’d lived in his compound.

  Noelle, on the other hand, studied him a moment and nodded gravely. “I remember you. Looks like someone kicked your ass.”

  “That was Peigi,” Stuart, who’d turned around to watch the encounter, said.

  “Yeah?” Noelle gazed at Peigi in profound respect and swung her fist through the air. “’Cause she’s awesome.”

  Peigi relaxed. Noelle would stare trauma in the face, and spit on it.

  Michael, still not understanding what had just happened, returned to the Shifters.

  Peigi moved to help him and Crispin, Noelle at her side. Graham joined them, his belligerence mitigated by compassion when he took in the injured Shifters.

  The most wounded were inside the tent, groaning softly in pain or simply staring. Some were contrite, realizing they’d thrown away their lives joining the hoch alfar, but others were defiant. Shiftertowns sucked, they said, and Shifter leaders were selling them all straight to hell. Graham had a few loud words to say about that.

  Peigi bandaged wounds and cleaned up blood and bile, comforting where she could. Noelle helped without a qualm. She tended wounds in all seriousness, having had plenty of experience ministering to her brothers and sisters when they got themselves hurt—Shifter cubs inevitably did. She knew how to clean cuts and wrap limbs and lend reassurance, telling her patients that all would be well and not to worry too much. Even the most recalcitrant Shifters were charmed by her.

  Neal Ingram, the Guardian of the Las Vegas Shiftertown, arrived not long later. Peigi went to meet him as he walked into the camp.

  “How did you find your way through?” she asked him curiously.

  Neal, a tall Lupine with gray eyes, was habitually a quiet man. Most Guardians kept to themselves, but Neal had made an art of it.

  Neal touched the hilt of his sword resting above his shoulder. “This lets me pass through the gates. The Shifter souls crying out were a clue where they were too. I’ll go help them.”

  He strode unerringly toward the end of the clearing where the dead Shifters had been laid out. Neal drew the Sword as he walked, and Peigi heard him begin a low chant to the Goddess.

  “Goddess go with them,” she whispered, and then returned to the Shifters who were alive and needed her.

  Ben decided to remain in Faerie, at least for a time, to attempt to forge a new karmsyern for the dokk alfar. Cian would take him home, he told Stuart, and Ben could work on a forge Cian planned to have built for him.

  Stuart was not surprised Ben decided to stay, and was grateful. “Take care of yourself,” Stuart told him.

  Ben held up his hands for a fist bump. “You mean don’t let a hoch alfar catch me and spear me. I’ll keep that in mind. Tell Jasmine I’ll be back to look after her house as soon as I can.” He hesitated. “Tell her to tell the house too. I wouldn’t want it getting upset at me.”

  Stuart agreed. An angry sentient house was a thing he did not want to experience. He completed the fist bump, advised Ben to send for him whenever he needed help, and left him to it.

  What did surprise Stuart was that Michael wanted to stay.

  “I’m a Collarless Shifter,” Michael explained when Stuart asked. “And I hurt and pissed off a lot of your friends. If you take me back, Dylan will get his hands on me, and either kill me or shove a Collar on me. Screw that. If I stay here, I can keep my eye on the Shifters who have joined the other side. Maybe catch some, beat sense into them. Who knows?”

  He shrugged and turned to another hurt Shifter. Michael was good at field doctoring, Stuart had already seen. He’d probably had to learn it while leading feral Shifters.

  Stuart would never forgive the ass for what he’d done to Peigi, the women he’d sequestered, and their cubs. But at least Michael might do some good, if Cian kept an eye on him, to make up for part of it. Peigi winning their domination fight had also subdued him a bit, Stuart could already tell. Noelle was right—Peigi was awesome.

  Matt and Kyle also wanted to stay in Faerie, to both see what it was like and attack a few hoch alfar for the fun of it, they said. Graham told them a firm no.

  This time, he used a tone that Matt and Kyle obeyed. They slunk next to him, dejected, but perked up again as soon as they marched with Graham toward the ley line gate. They were going home.

  Stuart and Peigi walked behind them, the two of them holding Noelle’s hands between them. Neal, downcast from dispatching so many Shifters today, followed with a bound and shivering Crispin.

  Peigi had kept Crispin’s silver medallion. She’d tried to relinquish it to Ben, so he could return to the human world when he wished, but he’d waved it off, saying he had his own talisman. She remembered the light in his hands when he’d dragged them home from Cian’s garden, and wondered if it had been he who’d opened the gate outside their bedroom window. She’d started to ask, but Ben had gazed at her as though he had no idea what she was talking about.

  Sure, he didn’t. The gleeful expression on his face when he’d turned away had confirmed her suspicions. He’d known they were needed and somehow sent them back.

  Neal opened the gate this time, the Sword of the Guardian leading the way. The mists parted and Peigi walked into her own kitchen, which was full of Shifters. Not only her cubs, but Nell, Cormac, Shane, Eric, and with him, Dylan Morrissey. The cubs’ yelps of gladness drowned out any questions or hope of conversation.

  Crispin waded through the throng and stood in front of Dylan, the chains around him clinking. They’d have to be cut off, as Stuart was no longer an iron master on this side of the gate.

  Dylan studied Crispin for a time, his blue eyes dark. Crispin returned the gaze, head up, though he trembled.

  Then Dylan abruptly reached for Crispin and dragged him into a tight, heartfelt, Shifter embrace.

  “Thank you,” Dylan whispered, his eyes misting. “It’s a brave, brave thing you did, lad.”

  Crispin returned the hug the best he could, and when Dylan released him, he was smiling, his eyes also full. “No problem, cuz. Give me a harder assignment next time, will you?”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “So he was Dylan’s plant?” Peigi asked. She and Stuart lounged on the back porch in the moonlight much later. It was still cold, but Peigi wanted the night and its silence—as silent as it ever got in Shiftertown. “Damn, he had me fooled.”

  Stuart, in the porch chair drawn next to hers, sipped the coffee he’d brewed after they’d fed the cubs’ dinner and at long last convinced them to go to bed. It had been a task getting them to settle down, but finally, they’d ceased listening to Noelle’s tales of her brief adventure and dropped off in exhaustion.

  “Dylan told me before he left tonight that he sent in Crispin to give him the rundown on the Shifters who’d defected,” Stuart said. “How many, who they were working for, what they were expected to do—basically any intel he could gather.”

  Peigi pulled the afghan Misty had given her closer around her. “Crispin was good at making us believe him a disgruntled
Shifter at the bottom of his clan.”

  “He is at the bottom of the Morrissey clan. Dylan decided he’d be perfect for the job, because no one would question a Shifter low in the hierarchy running off to find a place of his own. People ignored him, or despised him, or felt sorry for him.”

  “I felt sorry for him,” Peigi said with wry humor. “He was probably laughing his ass off at me the whole time.”

  “No, he was grateful.” Stuart slid his hand under the crocheted afghan and touched hers. “Deep cover is tough, believe me.”

  He took on a haunted expression, leftover from his years of moving from one identity to the next while he tried to find a way back to Faerie and home. The expression changed, however, as he met Peigi’s gaze, pain and distress leaving him. Now when he said home, he meant this house, Peigi, and the cubs.

  “So that’s why he stuck with us instead of trying to escape and return to the hoch alfar.” Peigi ran her thumb across the back of Stuart’s hand. “I wish Dylan had told us. I wouldn’t feel like such a fool.”

  “The fewer people who know about a cover, the less easy it is to have it blown. I know that from experience too. Dylan holds his cards very close to his chest. Not many people are on his need-to-know list. Apparently not me either, in this case.”

  “I understand, I think,” Peigi said. “But why didn’t Crispin try to get home to Dylan once he was away from the Fae prince?”

  “To gather as much intel on the situation as he could. Plus, I didn’t give him a lot of choice, did I?”

  Peigi laughed softly. “We played right into his hands.”

  “He told me today he was grateful to us. Hanging out with the hoch alfar could make anyone lonely.”

  Peigi let out a breath and rested her head on the back of the chair. “I hope Ben doesn’t feel the same way about dokk alfar.”

  “I think they’ll get along fine. Ben and Cian are a lot alike, doing anything to stop the hated hoch alfar. Cian will go far, I’m sure.”

  “I’ll feel better when Ben is back, anyway.” Peigi turned to look fully at Stuart. “Thank you for coming home with me.”