Roadside Magic (25 page)

I
t was dark, and it reeked of mortals. She floated, somewhere between sleep and waking, restless when voices reached her.

Come home to visit! Whooooo-eeeee! Look at me when I talk to you, girl!

Other voices, swirling.
Oh, my primrose darling . . . I will have your voice.

Her own despairing scream, glass shattering, the long fall. Something over her mouth—she struggled, hearing a low faraway grumble, and a hissed word in a strange language.

Her eyelids snapped up, her hands sprang like white birds to defend her, but he batted them aside. “Shhh, pretty girl.” Low and husky, another almost-familiar voice. “They’re sleeping; let’s not wake them.”

He was just a shadow, and she lay on a narrow cot in a small tin shell. It was a trailer, but she didn’t hear the moan-whisper of wind outside. The shadow had dark eyes and shaggy hair, and terror crawled into her throat like a stone.

“Shhh,” he soothed. “You’re safe now.”

There is no safety
. She clung to the thought; it was sanity in the middle of a jumble of broken glass and distorted faces. She
blinked, her skin crusted with salt and sand, and he eased his hard-callused hand away. She could breathe again.

“There,” he whispered. “They’re all sleeping, helped along by chantment. Do you know me?”

She shook her head. Her hair was stiff and heavy, filthy and matted.

The trailer was close and stifling, and there were solid shapes in the kitchenette, slumped against each other on a pair of rickety chairs, their heads together as if they were sharing secrets. Something heavy hung dripping in what had to be a tiny bathroom, and someone had wiped at her face to get the sand off. They’d tried to clean her up, and a woman had made her take two tablets and drink water. What she wanted, though, was milk. There was nothing better, and she craved it, her throat afire. She tasted blood, salt water, rotting ocean—but the stranger smelled oddly familiar. Spice and something wonderful under a tarnish, dampness and black wet earth.

She coughed, rackingly, but the sleeping pair didn’t stir. “Robin,” she choked. “I’m
Robin
.” As if she had just now realized it. Where was her coat? The heavy velvet had weighed her down, but she wanted its comfort now.

“You are.” He nodded, a faint gleam of eyes in the dimness. It was so
dark
in here. “And you do not know me?”

If I did, I might not say so
. She rubbed at her eyes, wincing a little at the grit. “Who are you?” The words were coated with rust, as if she hadn’t used them in a long time.

A gleam of teeth, and she recoiled. He stripped his hair back, and the nightlight’s faint glow showed a slice of high cheekbones, the shape of his mouth, dark eyes.

He was beautiful, and her breath caught. He seemed so
familiar
, but the fractured pieces inside her head wouldn’t form a constellation.

All the stars of Summer’s dusk . . . Robin-mama, why did you kill me?

A whine from outside.
That
was familiar, too. The hound.

“P-pepper,” she breathed. “Pepperbuckle.”

“He’s outside. Wouldn’t you like some free air? And milk. I’ll wager you want a draught, to ease your pains.”

How do you know?
“What does it cost?” It went better when she whispered. And she knew, didn’t she, that everything had a price?

He shook his head, his hair falling back down to curtain that sharp handsomeness. It looked like a habitual movement. “You are the creditor, Robin, and I the poor debtor. Have mercy on me, and come outside.”

Mercy? What the hell?
She found she could move, and propped herself on her elbows. Her feet were bare, and that wasn’t right. “My shoes.” Two harsh, grating words.

“Here.” He held them up—a pair of black heels, scuffed in some places, shining in others. She made a small sound, grabbing for them, but he whisked them away. “Easy, pretty girl.”

Why does he call me that?
Her heart beat, fast and thin, humming in her wrists and throat and ankles.
Don’t trust him
.

But he had her
shoes
. “Give them back.”

“I will. Let me help you.”

She snatched for her shoes again, and this time he let her take them. She clutched them to her chest, the sharp edges of the heels biting her naked upper arms, and stared distrustfully at him.

He sighed. “We cannot stay here, Robin. It’s dangerous.”

So are you
. Memory teased, turned into a yarn-ball inside her skull. The shivered pieces twitched, and she had the idea she wouldn’t like the picture they made when she put them back together. “Then leave,” she whispered.

He nodded, once, and gained his feet in a lunge. She shrank
away, against the trailer wall, but he just stared down at her, too tall for the confined space. Her arms hurt, and her throat filled with numbness. She inhaled, as if to scream . . .

 . . . and the trailer door shut, soft as a whisper. He was gone.

Robin clutched the shoes and closed her eyes. “I am Robin,” she whispered. At least she knew that much.

But where am I? Who was that? And what . . . where . . .

She slid back down into the bed smelling of mortals—what a funny word,
mortal
—and her entire body turned to lead. Her eyes closed, and she fell back into half-dreaming again, rocking in the narrow cot. It was like her bed at Court.

Court?

But it was gone. She slid back into soft sleep.

Outside, a warm spring night rustled palm trees, and a hound with a redgold coat sniffed carefully at a man’s hand. “
You
know me, don’t you? I fed you pigeons.”

Pepperbuckle nosed the proffered palm, showed his teeth, and backed away a few steps. His haunches thudded down again, and he fixed his intelligent blue gaze on the trailer’s door again.

Waiting for his mistress. When the stranger walked away, ducking under lines where washing hung to dry, the hound didn’t even twitch.

S
irens resounded in the distance, mortals scurrying to repair damage. Full night had fallen, and the drizzle turned to pellets of stinging ice. The deepest pool of shadow, beyond the hooded slump of the HVAC vent, grew blacker and blacker. Jeremiah kept the lance steady. The rag of sidhe-flesh, smoking with ironblight, was still screaming, making noises that could drive a mortal mad. Curse-birds took shape, battering at Jeremiah’s hair and shoulders, spreading out to peck at the dogs and the armored knights, who simply waved them away or spoke single soft words of chantment, crunching them into puffs of noisome smoke.

Gallow stabbed one last time, seeking the heart-knot holding the Fatherless to life. The ironblade found it, flushing forge-hot, and Goodfellow’s screams became choking gurgles.

The clot of shadow behind the vent birthed a slow, murderous gleam, light playing on a serrated blade. It spread, and became the foxfire limning of dwarven-made armor. A rider and a high helm, a flowing cloak of motheaten velvet hanging from spiked shoulders, the rooftop cracking and settling as the cold radiated. Atop the black charger, its massive
head a horrible reflection of a horse’s—because no horse had predator’s teeth—the bulk of the bloody-eyed lord of the Hunt and the Hallow smoked with ice that fell with tiny musical crashes.

The hounds ringed Jeremiah and his victim. They champed and slavered, but their master’s will kept them from darting in to nip at him. The drow kept their distance as well, hissing and shaking their golden nets; the knights simply sat, hands tight on reins and the sparks of their eyes glowing hot. They were every color possible, those glowing eyes, except one.

Only Unwinter bore the bloody gaze.

“
Gallow
,” the once-Consort of Summer said, softly. The scar on Jeremiah’s side clenched, red-hot, but he kept the lance steady. The Horn grew heavier, its chain cutting cruelly at the back of Gallow’s neck. “
I find you at murder again
.”

His mouth decided that he was already dead, so he might as well say what he thought. “Can’t get away from it, sir. No man can.”
At least, no sidhe can
. He should know, he’d tried.

Unwinter made a low grinding noise. The hounds cringed, and Jeremiah tensed—but it was merely Unwinter laughing.

Glad to know he finds me amusing
. He ground the lanceblade, and the violated, Twisted thing under it choked out one last burble of agony and sagged, dissolving into bubbling, silent slime.

Unwinter waited. Patiently. Of course, he had all the time in the world, now.

The lance drank, and drank, until there was nothing left. Finally, Gallow tore the blade free. The blunt end smacked the hillocked, crumbling roof, and he straightened. The Savoigh Limited shuddered, and now he wondered why Puck had led him here, of all places.

He was just trying to tire me out. Then he could, what? Take the Horn, certainly. And probably Robin’s locket.

The instant he thought of it, Robin’s necklace twitched in his pocket. Was she still alive?

She has to be.

If she wasn’t, he would tear apart Hell itself to find her. Though she would probably go straight up to the angels. Maybe they would deal with her more kindly than he had.

He faced Unwinter again, without the thin protection of holy ground. The lance hummed, the sick heat of stolen life coursing up its length and through his hand, up his arm to jolt in his shoulder. The scar ached, burned, and even the unhealthy surging fire of the lance couldn’t keep the poison back.

Okay, Jer. Make it good.

He dug under his chestplate. The medallion came out, and Unwinter’s crimson eyesparks narrowed. The collected host, crowding the roof, spectral knights and fanged drow, made an uneasy, restless movement.

“
You amuse me
,” Unwinter said, finally. “
Do you still seek to trade my property for your own miserable life?
”

Gallow shook his head. “No. But I’ll hand it over without a whisper for your promise.”

“And what promise is that? The Horn is mine.”

Not right now it isn’t. Possession is nine-tenths, motherfucker.
“The same as last time. Protect Robin Ragged. Keep her safe, let her live. Revenge any hurt done to her, guard her.” The Horn became heavier, unfolding into its other shape. An alien curve of blackened metal polished to high silver where runes of no make mortal or sidhe were hammered into its surface—
starmetal,
the dwarves said, and denied any making of the thing. They said it had simply been dropped whole onto the
screaming, shuddering earth before the Sundering, even before Danu’s children woke in the forests during the Long Night. Long before the mortals had crawled forth to begin wrenching iron from the depths.

Unwinter made that same grinding noise. “
So much trouble for one little Half bird. Tell me, Gallow, why I should not simply strike you down? You challenged me, you robbed me, you insulted me, and you slew one I held dear.
”

He’s not asking about the poison
. Jeremiah shrugged. “Because you’re not Summer.”

One of the drow gasped, as if Jeremiah had screamed an obscenity.

“You’re a just lord,” Gallow continued. “And I’m dead soon anyway. I might as well get a fair price for my exit.”

Unwinter stared at him for a long, empty, cold moment.
Please
, Jeremiah thought.

Please let him be amused.

Finally, the high-crowned helm dipped slightly. Unwinter nodded.

“
Bind him
,” he said. “
Take him to the Keep, deliver him whole and undamaged
.”

Wait, what?

He fought, but the drow were many, their nets tangling, the lance vanishing as chantment sparked in the hair-fine golden strands. They searched him as they cocooned him, and the Horn bit and sparked with cold as they sought to tear it from him. Since they could not, they settled for the next best thing—Robin’s locket gleamed, ripped from his neck and sizzling against drow flesh.

“My lord!” the creature cried, and dropped it, chiming, to the ground.

“
Ah
.” Unwinter sounded thoughtful. One of the knights
dismounted, carefully tweezed the chain up, and tossed it from hand to hand as if it was too hot to hold. Of course, it was truemetal, and Robin was of Summer.

He struggled as the knight handed it up to his lord, and Unwinter dangled the locket thoughtfully, seeming not to notice the steam that rose from his gauntlet. “
Pretty jesses, for a little bird
.” At least Unwinter did sound pleased. Terribly, fully amused.

No!
Jeremiah thrashed. It made no difference. His side cramped again, and blood burst between his lips. The Horn tangled in the netting and snarled, its cold breaking through the strands, but more crowded to take their places.

Before the sweating sickness of the poison and the dragging languor of net-chantment robbed him of consciousness, Gallow heard Unwinter’s final command.

“Ride in hunt of the Ragged. A prize to whoever catches her alive, and whole!”