Breaking Ties (18 page)

God damn it! Why can't I have a better fucking vocabulary. What did I do, what the hell happened? It just came out, the anger and the pain, and it pushed itself through memories of Dungeons & Dragons and Bigby's Multitalented Hand.

If this didn't work, if I didn't heal him, I don't know what I'm going to do.

But his breathing calms, the swelling recedes, color returning to his face as his eyes crack open. “Your pronunciation is atrocious. You speak like…” he coughs, a little blood marking his lips, “…like a…” He rests his head on the floor and chuckles to himself, then extends his hand. “Tyras, the Dragon King. It is an honor to finally meet James Black, the Lightning Rod.”

Chapter Twenty

Spencer

December 20, 11:30 am

I figured that being buried alive would be a little scarier.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I must say this whole situation has me rather concerned. But generally when you think “buried alive” you imagine some terrified actor shot from the side, meekly holding a lit match to discover they can barely move, and you find yourself being short of breath while watching it. Instead, we've got a “Cask of Amontillado” thing going on, only with more space.

Granted, there isn't any food or water, so I have to suspect we're expected to suffocate. Not that I'm worrying about suffocating, or breathing heavily, or holding my breath, or wondering if I'm lightheaded. My fellow captive, though, he's totally been falling to pieces over the last couple hours. Yep, completely him. Not me at all.

The weird thing is the bricks. I know we haven't been trapped down here long, but I wouldn't think that the mortar would have set by now if they just walled us in. In fact, the bricks look rather old, which begs the question of…

“How did they get us down here?” I motion to the boxes in the hallway. “And what's with the storage if we're walled in?”

Searching them yields no fruit, like a chisel or a sledgehammer or anything. Instead, the boxes are filled with old musty clothes. My fellow prisoner seems more interested in them than I am.

“I have no answers, I'm afraid.” He inspects a large blue shirt with short sleeves. “Interesting. The heraldry is familiar.”

“The what, now?” I come over to inspect the shirt as well, but as far as I know it's a blue shirt.

He points out varying shades of blue, a single black stripe through them all. “It is simpler than a coat of arms. This was used to show allegiance.”

“Will that help us get out of here, or be useful in the third act when I have to provide evidence of someone's betrayal?”

He gapes at me a few seconds. “What on
earth
are you talking about?”

I sigh. “Not a fan of procedural shows, I see.”

“To answer your more sensible question, no, I am not knowledgeable enough in the local heraldry to discern which House it represents. Knowing that would give us an educated guess as to our location. This appears to be from the Old Houses across the sea, before the days of the kingdom.” He glares at me. “I do despise Bards. A trickster is the last sort of person who should hear this information.”

“I don't bother conning Fae. You guys already have Phouka to make you look foolish, and they can do it without telling one lie.” I shrug. “Besides, there's no money in it, and Fae are the last people who'd take a long look at their lives and consider a different direction. Then again, you're all walking dreams, and a Coyote has no business telling dreams what they should and shouldn't be doing.” I stretch, leaning against the wall. “We stick to humans, and stick it to humans, and more often than not stick it in humans. That's the job Fate gave us, and we've got no complaints. Also, as I might've mentioned, no money in conning Fae.”

He rolls his eyes. “I take it Coyotes like money.”

“Like it? Hell, we love it! What else but money has such…such raw
potential
, affects lives in such major swings, influences every aspect of someone's self-image and life path, and in the end, it's just strips of treated linen that only have value because people believe it does. Money is by far the greatest ongoing trick in the history of everything. We love money more than sex. Hell, we'd take money to a strip club and throw naked ladies at it.” I glance at him. “What's your net worth, by the way?”

He huffs. “Service is its own reward.”

“Yeah, just keep telling yourself that while I'm getting a lap dance and drinking Grande Cuvée.” I drum my fingers on the walls, examining the ceiling a moment when…

There's a vent.

“Check this out.” I get under it and look up. It's more like a grate, several feet up, and the boxes don't look sturdy enough to stand on. “Give me a boost?”

Ceasing his grumbling, he hoists me upward, the grate heavy iron, which is likely to dissuade Fae from touching it, but I guess that's where our captors made an error. All that's left to do is lift it, push it out of the way, and
Mission: Impossible
our asses out of…

Okay, when I say “vent” apparently I have little idea what an air shaft is supposed to be. It's thin, compact, and if I tried to crawl in there, it'd take a hell of a lot of work and I'd quite quickly get stuck, thanks to the broad shoulders my Nordic ancestry provided. (Swedish on my Mom's side, her maiden name is Jensen.) Plus, the smell ain't too great.

Still, no water or soot on the walls, so it appears that it could be traversed if I were the size of a ten-year-old.

Or…

I drop down and examine my cellmate, a little too closely I guess, as he shoves me back in a not-too-playful fashion. “Are
all
Coyotes this lecherous?”

“Yes.” I finish walking around him. “But strangely enough, I'm not checking you out for that reason. I'm wondering if you'd fit the shaft.” I grin. “Well, the shaft up there too. I've got experience with Fae, and you guys can definitely take a shaft.” I waggle my eyebrows to punctuate it, and when he makes an aggravated sound, I notch a little tally mark in my head.

“Would you
please
take this seriously? Who knows when a cadre of heavily armed knights might come back and discover we're free?” He inspects the opening in the ceiling and crinkles his nose. “What an awful stench. Perhaps we are near a sewer line.”

He then effortlessly jumps upward (seriously, that's a hell of a vertical. I wonder how many Fae play basketball?), grabbing the rim of the opening and lifting himself up to poke his head through, and then almost immediately drops, his face reddened and pocked as he coughs heavily. I support him as he clears his lungs in a series of violent coughing fits. “Iron shavings… Not too far down the shaft, but too far even for me. We're trapped. Were you a Phouk, well, the iron would kill you, but at least you could fit.”

Wait…

Phouka can turn themselves into dogs and horses so long as no one's looking. I managed to swipe that trick from the King of the Phouka himself, and luckily for me, no Fae blood in my system. (I've had a couple other Fae bodily fluids in my system, but never blood.) Hence…

“Close your eyes?”

When he does, it's all I need. It's a simple trick, really, just sliding under the door of disbelief. What's to say that I didn't hide or something, and an actual coyote happened to show up and stand in my place?

Going from biped to quadruped takes a few seconds to get used to. Once it's done, I bark, getting his attention, and god
damn
he wasn't kidding about the stink. I know that with a more sensitive schnozz I should be able to pick out exactly what everything is, but I've got a human mind and no interest in practicing my heightened senses on…ugh… I whine, I'm man or, well, coyote enough to admit that.

I look at him, then up at the hole, then him again, waiting for him to get the idea, as it's not like I can talk. After almost a minute of going between him and the vent like I've got a bad nervous tic, he finally gets the idea and picks me up, lifting me toward the opening and shoving at my butt until I'm able to scrabble my way in.

Not the most comfortable space, but I should be able to crawl and shimmy my way around.

“Good luck. Be careful.” I hear him wheeze. “I'll stay here, recover.” Another coughing fit and a sound that I'd guess would be him slumping against the wall to catch his breath.

Now it's just a long trek toward God knows what.

I try breathing through my mouth, but then I taste the air and somehow it's even worse than it smells. How did we not smell this before? I doubt that if the Fae were using this place as a storage unit, they'd link it to a sewer line.

This is what I don't get. Why would they bother doing all of this? It doesn't make any sense to leave us a way out, not tie me up. They knew when they picked me up that I'm not Fae, so why put me in a place that a non-Fae could escape? Plus, there's this shaft, which I could only fit in if I were a coyote or a Phouk, and there's no guarantee I'll find help, plus I leave that guy behind who knows about Bards and…

Clank.

That came from behind me.

It sounded like a grate being yanked back into place.

While no one's looking at me, I can't really go human again, considering it's a bit of a tight fit in here as a 'Yote. So I bark to see if he'll tell me what's going on.

“Figure it out yet, Bard? The Riordan's stories of you painted you as quite clever.”

Well, I'm figuring it out
now
.

With half-sidhe, from the couple I've seen at Under the Bridge, it's practically impossible to tell them apart from actual sidhe. Not all sidhe have weird skin tones, mostly it's in the attitude and (I speak from personal experience here) half-Fae men tend to be, ah,
bigger
than full-blooded Fae. I just figured he was small for a twin-blood during my inspection (of
course
I looked there).

But why the iron? To sell it, of course. I'd be more immediately trusting of a fellow prisoner. It's a classic con. To understand how Fae work, you have to remember that truth-telling is a scary weapon. They'll rarely tell you anything directly, even if you're a Bard. Instead they let you infer a lot, let you assume and give you enough rope to hang yourself. So he leads me to believe he's a half-Fae prisoner (though thinking back, he never outright said he was, or why he was in there) and takes one for the team with the iron to get me into this tiny shaft.

But it begs the question, what was the point of all of it?

Why not just leave me in the room I was originally in or stuff me into the shaft in the first place?

Because I had to confirm that not only was I a Bard and Rourke's consort, but also everything I told them at the accident site was bullshit. I had to give demonstrations of my abilities and then
willingly
put myself in here where I'd be trapped, unable to speak and scared.

Now they can leverage this into getting Rourke to do whatever they want.

And I walked right into it.

Chapter Twenty-One

Ozzie

December 20, 11:00 am

“Where are we going, Riordan?”

Finding a true cold-iron sword is difficult in this day and age, since Fae-steel has been the alloy of choice for centuries among the Fae. There's just not much of a point to using plain iron, cold-forged or not, for anything anymore.

We're driving, weaving through traffic in a Corvette I wouldn't mind taking a look at. I wouldn't have pegged the Riordan as a Chevy guy, especially considering that he's wearing a Jaguar shirt and that his dealership (when he ran it) sold mostly high-end Jags and Astons.

“To find where Spencer is being held, of course.” His fingers are gripped tightly about the wheel.

“I hadn't figured he still meant that much to you, sir. I was under the impression things between you two had changed.”

“That doesn't mean I don't have concern for his well-being.” I catch him smiling, a devious edge to it. “Tell me, how has he been these last few weeks?”

Normally, I'd take issue with divulging information about someone, even the Coyote, but this is the Riordan, and his authority is almost tangible. “He's been hanging around the Ra'keth, probably trying to trick him.”

He glances at me. “You're certain of that?”

“He's a Coyote, what else would he be doing?” Besides falling for my boyfriend, but I'm not going to share that. If finding out that someone's in love with your boyfriend is tough on you, I imagine finding out your ex-boyfriend has truly moved on isn't the best of news either.

“You have a lot of experience with Coyotes, then, Dwarf?”

I shrug. “Got tricked by one last year.” I could've sworn he was James, even though I should've known, given how…forward he was. In the months since, I've learned that James isn't the best at instigating, but he definitely gets in the mood after a few minutes of attention. When you have total control over reality it's probably nice to have someone else be in charge for a…

And now I have to obscure a sudden issue from view.

“You get a name on that one?”

“I guess he was Spencer's brother. So Spencer
claims
.” Though if it was actually him, then…

I shudder. That did a good job at calming things down there.

The Riordan nods, and we don't seem to be driving toward anything in particular, taking turns almost at random. “That one can be a handful, yes. I've had dealings with him. He's quite wily when he needs to be, but all too often fails to take the long view.”

“I thought Coyotes were forbidden from doing that?” The Coyote had proudly defended his clan's spontaneity, something about how Foxes and Dogs are too wrapped up in a game fifteen moves ahead to notice you're wrecking their game plan right now.

I look at the passing streets. We're heading into South Allora. “Where are we going? I don't know where we can find a cold-iron blade in this country, much less the City, and I must apologize, sir, but I'm
not
forging such a blade for you.”

“And why not?”

“To start, I'm not an officially recognized smith, as I've forged nothing of note. I only have experience with car parts, and the closest I can come to making a weapon is a quarterstaff. I believe you'd agree that an iron staff would be a bit unwieldy, if you'll pardon the pun. Most importantly, though, I won't be known as the forger of a blade that cut down some nobles, no matter what I think of them.”

“Do not worry yourself, Dwarf, the matter is already handled.” He reaches across to the glove compartment and retrieves a semiautomatic pistol. “Fae fall to bullets as easily as blades.” His face shimmers a moment, the barrel of the gun training on me as the Riordan seems to vanish, replaced by a man in his early forties with short, messy black hair, golden eyes, a complexion that implies native ancestry, an easy smile crossing his face that reminds me of the Coyote. He's wearing a dark suit with a loose tie and an expression that implies no bullshit. “Now, Dwarf, you're going to tell me everything you know about this Cobalt Order.”

I consider jumping out, but even being half-Dwarf doesn't mean I can make a fast exit from a moving car. I've cheated death once in the last twenty-four hours. I don't want to give it another shot at me. “Who are you? What'd you do with the Riordan?”

“What, Rourke? I was going to walk into his place and take a look around. Instead I found you just standing outside, so eager to give me all of this choice information. As far as I know, the old Dog's either still in his apartment or off in Allora bangin' that sidhe chick. Oh, I'm sorry,
Her Majesty
.” He winks at me. “Thanks for those factoids, by the way. As for who I am…” He cocks the gun.

I grip the handle of the door, his eyes catch the motion. “Don't worry, Dwarf, if I was going to shoot you, I would've.” He uncocks the hammer. “Just a fidgety habit of mine, is all. So I hear tell you're the one fuckin' the Ra'keth. Kind of interesting that instead of looking for him, you're out trying to save a Coyote's ass.” He chuckles. “Honeymoon over?”

“He can take care of himself.” I won't use James's name, I'm not that stupid. “You never said who you are. You're a Coyote? Going to find your little brother and put two in his skull?” He glares at me suddenly, but I continue. “He's been pretty open on how he's on the outs with the clan.”

“No, Dwarf.” He smiles again, but it's much darker this time. “I am going to find my
son
and end any blueblood who stands in my way. Maybe even more than that. Too damned many of you and you're all too damned static.
Boring.
” He bumps the nose of the barrel against my forehead, still driving with ease. “Not you, though. Mostly because a blind man could tell you're a halfie.” He winks again. “You're a little tall for a Dwarf. Half-bloods are…interesting, and far be it from me to snip someone Momma Fate thinks is interesting.”

I swallow, fighting off trembles. “I…I thought Coyotes didn't hurt anyone with their tricks.”

“Tricks?” He laughs loudly, scratching his temple with the barrel of the gun. “Pups trick, kid. Tricks are when Momma Fate thinks someone needs a new life path. Tricks are when Mother Lachesis has a bad case of the what-ifs. Tricks are for pups who think the Weaver is the shit. I prefer Granny Atropos. There are some people the world would be better without, and if Granny's gotta cut a thread, she might as well have a laugh too. That's what I do, kid. I don't trick. I prank.” He points the pistol at the center of my chest. “But you're still not gabbing about those bluebloods, Shorty, and I might double-tap your
X
ring just for the hell of it, so let's chat.”

I gulp. “You're Spencer's father?”

He appears thoughtful a few seconds. “Yep, he's definitely mine. I'm Justin Crain with him. I don't hear any talking. Now if you knew where my son was, you would've told me when you thought I was Rourke.”

So I tell him. I tell him everything I know, and I'm ashamed of that, not because I gave all of that information to a Coyote, but because I know what he's going to do with it. Just because I won't forge a blade that'll kill a bunch of sidhe doesn't mean they've been forgiven for wrecking my car, nearly killing me and kidnapping Spencer.

I'm signing their death warrants, because I doubt they've ever faced a Coyote, especially not one who claims to work for the Crone herself. It isn't right, and I wish I wanted to stop myself.

“Thanks for your cooperation, Dwarf.” He pulls over to a nearby curb. I think we're close to the neighborhoods that straddle the border between South Allora and Destry Bay. “In fact, I'm feeling a little grateful, which is odd for me, I'll admit. I saw a dragon with blue hair in line for the Palace over in Allora. Took everything I had not to trick her out of her last dime, but she's probably still there.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

He grins knowingly. “Because you can't bullshit a Coyote. You'd give your ass and hat to know where the Ra'keth is and run off to his rescue, and the only reason you ain't shakin' down your pal at the diner is you know he'd tell you if he knew anything. Other dragons on the other hand…”

“How exactly am I supposed to convince a
dragon
to tell me anything?”

“Remind me to tell you how I stole Spencer's mother away from your hallowed Riordan sometime.” His eyes take on a glint. “Love is the greatest trick ever devised. You'd be amazed at the crazy shit a perfectly sane person will do for someone they love. Makes any one of us think that we're human and makes humans remember they are. In the end, it's why I lost her.”

He chuckles to himself before looking at me. “And, Dwarf, it's why you'll lose him. But hey, maybe you're the exception. You certainly wouldn't be the first mythic to buy that line. Love conquers all and all that shit, which is the answer to your question. You think you love the Ra'keth, so when you've got that dragon in your sights, you'll think of something. Anything less would disappoint Momma Fate.” He picks up the silk bag I left on the seat, inspects the shotgun inside. “Think I'll keep this, though.”

And then he drives away.

So I turn and start toward home, because that's not the case with me and James. It isn't. I mean I…care about him, deeply, enough that maybe I could say what I'm really feeling if I work up the nerve. And those dreams are just that, dreams and insecurity, and I'll be damned if I'm going to step aside and let the Coyote do some perfectly orchestrated pop-culture overture and win James away from me. But I can fix it.

I'm going to go home, get what I made for James, find this dragon and make him or her take me to James, help him or rescue him or whatever he needs, and then I tell him that I…

That I…

“That I love him.” I exhale. “Yeah, Ozzie, you're all brave and can say it when he's not here. Good on ya. Now get moving before people start thinking you're nuts for talking to yourself.”

The door is fixed when I get home, and I take the back stairs down a few flights to the basement, unlock it, move through the first room with storage boxes, washer, dryer and steam press, to a door outlined with Sigil. The keyword needs some effort, as being twin-blooded means Sigil doesn't come as easy. But the door still opens with a grudging groan to the workshop on the other side.

It's actually Dad's workshop. I more have a workbench.

I'm almost thirty and I still only have a workbench. Which he gave me at twenty-two.

But the steel. The steel doesn't care what my blood is, no matter what the other Dwarves think. It only cares that it's worked and forged and alloyed and folded and shaped by someone who respects it, and Fae-steel, well, even more so.

But it's expensive.

So I saved. Scraps, slivers, bits and chunks that are left over and would've been melted down anyway. For seven years. That seems like it'd be a lot, but in the end I had enough to make one thing. A couple months ago, I knew what it would be.

A sword is often what a Dwarf starts with, his first opus, proof that he is a smith of regard. Dad started me off with machining a fourteen-inch hubcap for a minor noble who lived outside the City and was barely making the payments on his Cadillac. That I was given the task was meant to be a message of how high a priority he was. But I got the bug, and every now and then I come down here and tinker away on a project when I'm bleary-eyed from staring at the books.

Then I met James.

And despite all my insistence that being a blacksmith was just a stereotype, I wanted to make something, forge something with my own hands. For him.

So I used my ingots and scraps and tapped a bit of my savings (not too much, I can still make rent with ease), and over the last couple months I've made…this.

It's six feet even in length, one inch in diameter with a rounded bottom and an ornamental crown, the Fae-steel worked to a sheen that catches the light in an argent shimmer, or a deep ocean blue in the dark. I've put a lot of work into the etching that runs the entire length, painstaking work, especially considering that on many occasions I've had to delay dates or cut them short or miss out on sleep to work on the project.

Enchanting is difficult, that's a given, but it's what Dwarves are good at. Sidhe swear oaths and fight, brownies clean, trolls protect, Phouka trick, and Dwarves smith and enchant.

Fae-steel by its very nature holds magic well. The fact that it's made without iron is just a bonus, really. According to legend, making this stuff is the only reason we were created by the Ra'keth to begin with. We were made a race of weaponsmiths to forge armaments for the inevitable military conflicts between Ra'keth. Often, the other armies utilized dragons. What we made injured or killed the dragons, hence their hatred of us. Occasionally we were asked to forge something for the personal use of a Sorcerer King.

All those times, our smithing was done under orders, under decree from a Sorcerer King. But this…

I run my hands along the length, fingers brushing the inscribed Sigil, enchantments that I had to look up, research and engrave after the usual charm etchings for perfect balance and easy wielding. (Sidhe may have a natural knack for everything, but it doesn't stop them from looking for an advantage when they commission a sword.) The Sigil leading to the cap, where it would rest upon the ground, is a series of channeling enchantments, to tap the innate power in the earth and to ground out any excess energy. From the center to the crown are memory charms, ensuring that the wielder can have close-to-perfect recall, as James tends to scramble for words in a pinch, the headpiece etched with the words for lightning, since I suspect he'll use it as a literal lightning rod.

A sorcerer should have a staff, and I want to be the one who can give him that.