[Merry Gentry 04] - A Stroke of Midnight (12 page)

Frost had turned away. I caught his arm. “What is wrong?”

“Nothing, I'm going to go change.” But he wouldn't look at me. Frost had a tendency to be moody. If I'd had more time I would have asked more questions, but the humans were coming, and we were out of time. I promised myself that if he stayed sulky I'd find out what was wrong. I was hoping it was some momentary mood and nothing more.

Doyle said, “Let him go, he'll need a little time to adjust.”

I frowned at him. “Adjust to what?”

Doyle gave a smile that was more sad than happy. “Later, if you still need to ask, I will explain, but now we have very little time to question our witnesses. You have called the police into the sithen, Princess, and we must prepare.”

He was right, but I wanted to know what had I missed. It couldn't be just about sex with Mistral, they'd all seen me have sex with others. But if not that, then what? I shook my head, smoothed my short skirt, and put it from my mind. We had a crime to solve if the Goddess would give us enough free time to do it. I couldn't seem to control the wild magic that was returning to us, but I could at least pretend to control the murder investigation. Though the tight feeling in my stomach told me I didn't have much control over either.

CHAPTER 9

SOME OF THE MEN WENT TO CLEAN UP. OTHERS WENT TO AWAIT
the police at the door to the sithen because they would never find their way in on their own. The door moved, and it didn't like strangers. Only magic could hold the door open for mortal step that had never crossed its threshold before. When we had divided everyone up, we found we were missing someone. Onilwyn hadn't been in the hallway. He hadn't gone with Rhys, so he hadn't returned with him. He was simply gone. He'd been Cel's creature for centuries. I did not like that he had gone missing just after such a major magical happening. It made me think he'd gone to tattle to his true master, or whoever was bearing tales to Cel in his prison cell.

We threaded our way between the two bodies that were still waiting for the police. When we were close to the large kitchen door, I heard shouting and barking. Maggie May's accent was thick because she was angry. “You are a bla'guard, tree man, that you are. Get out of my kitchen!” Her little terriers were doing their version of shouting right along with her.

“I'm trying,” a man's voice yelled.

We got to the door in time to see a cast-iron skillet the size of a small shield smash into Onilwyn's back. It staggered him, and other pots and pans drove him to all fours. Pans of copper and stainless steel flashed their polished brightness as they hit his body, but it was the deep black cast-iron skillets in their various sizes that were beating him down. Cold iron has been proof against faeries for a very long time. The sidhe may rule faerie, but cold iron still hurts.

Maggie May stood in her kitchen, surrounded by a storm of pots, pans, ladles, spoons, forks, and knives, like an evil metal snow globe with her small brown figure as its centerpiece. The ladles joined the attacks of the pots and pans. Onilwyn was now flat to the floor, arms over his head for protection. Three faerie terriers were darting in and out to nip at him. The plumpest dog had sunk teeth into his boot top and was trying to shake it to death.

His sword lay on the floor by the large black stove. If you're going to attack a brownie never do it on their home turf.

“She's gone bogart,” Galen said over the crashing of metal.

I looked harder at her face. All brownies have skull-like faces because they have no nose, just nostrils. But if their faces look like evil grinning skulls, then they have gone evil—bogart. Brownies can thresh a field of wheat in a single day, or build a barn overnight. Think of that much power turned destructive, insanely destructive. They still tell stories in a lonely part of Scotland border country of a laird who raped and murdered a local girl. He didn't realize her family had been adopted by a brownie. The laird and all his household were cut to pieces.

Maggie May was not quite a bogart, but she was working up to it.

“No,” Doyle said, “not bogart, not yet, but we must find a way to distract her before the knives join the battle.”

“Seems a shame,” Rhys said.

I agreed, but true bogarts are part of the sluagh, the evil host, not true Unseelie Court anymore. Maggie deserved better, no matter how I felt about Onilwyn.

Rhys shouted, “Maggie May, it's Rhys! You sent for me, remember!”

The spoons swirled in to join the ladles, which left only the heavy iron forks, big enough to turn a side of beef, and the knives. We were running out of time.

I said the only thing I could think of that might shock her into listening. “Aunt Maggie, what happened to upset you?”

The pots began to slow like a swirl of heavy snowflakes brought to rest by a gentle wind. That wind laid them in neat lines on the heavy wooden table. “What d' ye say?” she asked, and her voice was thick with suspicion.

“I said, Aunt Maggie, what happened to upset you?”

She frowned at me. “I'm not Aunt Maggie to you, girl.”

“You are my great-grandmother's sister on my mother's side. That makes you my great-aunt Maggie.”

She still looked unhappy, but nodded slowly, and said, “Aye, that be true. But you are a princess of the sidhe, whatever your blood be or be not. The sidhe donna acknowledge us.”

“Why not?” I asked.

She rubbed her hairy fingers across her nose-less face and frowned harder. “Princess Meredith, ye needs be more careful of who you be talkin' in front of.” She looked at Onilwyn, who was getting painfully to his feet. There was blood on his pale skin.

“Yes, he is Cel's creature. But Cel knows my bloodlines.”

“The sidhe know only what they wish to know about the blood that runs through their veins.” As she calmed her accent began to vanish. Her voice was cultured and midwest, nowhere like a news anchor. She'd cultivated that voice by talking on the phone to other faerie terrier fanciers across the country and the world. You couldn't get a new breed of terrier recognized by the American Kennel Club if no one could understand what you were saying to them.

“Denying my heritage won't change what I am,” I said. “It won't make me one inch taller, or look one bit more royal sidhe.”

“Mayhaps,” Maggie said, smoothing her hands down her shapeless dress, “but it is not brownie blood that will put you on the throne.”

I reached over to the big cast-iron skillet where it lay on the table. I wrapped my hand around its cool metal handle. It was inert under my hand, just metal to me. I lifted the heavy skillet, changing my grip until I had the balance of it. “But it's brownie blood that helps me do this.”

Her eyes narrowed at me. “Aye, or human.”

“Or human,” I agreed.

Onilwyn swayed and collapsed back to his knees. If he'd been human, he would probably have been dead.

“What set you and your dogs on him?” I asked.

Two of her terriers had come to her feet, but the plump one still growled at Onilwyn. I realized the dog wasn't fat, she was pregnant. The bitch was so full of puppies that she waddled when she finally went back to Maggie's call.

“Dulcie went to sniff his foot,” Maggie said. “She growled at him a bit. She would nae have bit him.” Her thin strong hands balled into fists. She seemed to be controlling herself with effort. “He kicked her, and her full of puppies. He kicked ma dog.”

My first memory was of being in a small dark cupboard with squirming puppies. One puppy was more than my lap could hold. A huge dog sat by the thin line of light of the curtains that covered the front of our hole. The silky fur of the faerie terrier puppies and that alert dog is still an utterly vivid memory. My father once told me what I, at around eighteen months, didn't remember. My father and Barinthus had both been called away, so my father had left me with Maggie May. The queen's steward had come unrepentantly to check on some dish for that night's banquet. If the queen knew my father hid me in the kitchens, it would no longer be a haven for me.

I'd crawled into the cupboard with the puppies and their mother, as I often did. I was very gentle with them even then, Maggie had told me once. When the steward came, she just closed the drapes hiding both me and the puppies. The steward didn't believe it hid just puppies, so he tried to peek and the mother dog bit him. She protected her puppies and me.

To this day the scent and feel of the terriers was a comforting thing to me. I don't know what I would have said or done to Onilwyn about his behavior because he decided for me.

Rhys and Galen both yelled, “Don't!”

I sensed Doyle and others moving, but I was next to the kneeling Onilwyn as he raised his hand and called his magic, pointing it at Maggie May.

I didn't think, I just reacted. My hand was still wrapped around the iron skillet. I hit him full in the face with as much strength as I had in one arm. I'm not as strong as a full-blooded sidhe, or even brownie, but I can punch my way through a car door and not hurt myself. I did that once to discourage a would-be mugger.

Blood flew from around the skillet, a bright surprised scarlet spray. He collapsed to his side, moaning softly. His nose looked like a squashed tomato, and there was so much blood it was hard to tell what other damage I'd done to his face.

There was a thick silence in the room. I think I surprised everybody, including myself.

Rhys shook his head, squatting down by the fallen man. “You really don't like him, do you?”

“No,” I said, and realized that the thought of letting Onilwyn touch me was repulsive. He'd been one of my main tormentors when I was a child. I still hated Cel and some of his cronies enough to feel nothing but a sense of utter satisfaction at the ruin of Onilwyn's face. It wasn't like he wouldn't heal.

The little terrier he had kicked came up to him growling. She sniffed his blood, then sneezed sharply as if he smelled bitter. She turned her back on him, and dug her feet into the floor, throwing blood into the air, a dominant, defiant gesture.

The dog went back to her mistress and the two other dogs so the three of them sat in a smiling, butt-wriggling row at Maggie's feet. Maggie May was grinning at me with strong yellow teeth showing. “Oh, ah, you be kin.”

I nodded, and handed the bloodied skillet to her. “Yes, yes, I am.” I smiled at her and she laughed, a great roar of laughter. She wrapped her arms around me, hugging me tight. It surprised me for a heartbeat, but then I hugged her back just as tight. Here was someone else who wasn't touching me to gain anything. She hugged me because, just because. Hugs for no reason, just because were nice, and lately I wasn't getting enough of them.

CHAPTER 10

A HIGH, RINGING SOUND CAME. WE ALL LOOKED AROUND THE
room, but there was nothing to account for the sound. It came again. It was as if the finest crystal goblet were being struck with metal, so that it made that high, ringing, bell-like tone only the best crystal makes.

Rhys was unsheathing his short sword. “I left Crystall in charge outside with the police.” He held the naked blade up before his face. “You rang?”

Crystall's face appeared dim and pale in the blade. “Rhys, I am unsure how to proceed.”

“What's wrong?” Rhys asked.

“I think that we need someone here who is more conversant with modern police and modern politics.”

Rhys shook his head. “I didn't ask what you needed. I asked what's wrong.”

“As far as I can ascertain, the humans are arguing about who is in charge.”

“In charge of what?”

“Everything,” Crystall said. “They seem to have no clear hierarchy. It is like a game of too many princes.”

Rhys sighed. “I'll be there as soon as I can, Crystall.”

“I am sorry, Rhys, but none of us here spend much time outside the land of faerie.”

“It's all right. I'll be there.” Rhys wiped the blade clean with a movement of his hand. He looked at Doyle. “I didn't think we needed someone more modern with the police; I should have.”

“Do not apologize,” Doyle said. “Simply fix it.”

Rhys gave a bow and went for the door. He walked past me, but it was something on the other side of the room that attracted my attention.

I saw something over Maggie May's shoulder. Movement. The curtain under the sink, where I'd hidden as a child, fluttered. Something was behind that piece of cloth, something bigger than a small dog.

Adrenaline rushed through me so hard and fast that my fingertips tingled with it. I had assumed that someone had searched the area for the killer. Had I assumed wrong?

I broke the hug with Maggie May with a squeeze, fighting to control my face and body. I wanted to alert Doyle and the others without alerting whoever was hiding.

Doyle was just beside me as if I'd given myself away, by some hesitation or movement. He opened his mouth, but I touched his lips with my fingers. He took the hint. He stood mute before me and did not ask what I'd feared, not out loud. With his dark eyes, he asked, What is wrong? But not out loud.

I glanced, using only my eyes, behind me. I tried for the angle I wanted but wasn't certain he'd understand.

He knelt by Onilwyn's moaning form and said, “Why did you leave us, Onilwyn? Why did you come ahead to the witnesses?”

The only answer was a soft, bubbling moan.

Doyle positioned himself so he could see the sink area while he questioned the fallen man.

I fought not to look behind me.

Doyle leaned in close to Onilwyn. “Are you saying a brownie and a half-human princess have struck you such a blow that you are brought low?”

He made no sign that I could see, but Galen called out, “Peasblossom, Mug, come out and talk to us.” He walked around the table, and for a moment I thought the two little fey had been the ones hidden under the sink and I was simply too suspicious.

I turned to see him go to the open cabinets above the sink area. Mug, the pale blue fey that had come to fetch Rhys, and another tiny winged figure were peeking out from among the teacups. It was Mug's voice, high and twittering like the song of birds made human speech, that answered, “We feared Maggie'd forget us in her anger, Galen Green Knight.”

He was by them now, gazing up at them. “So you hid among the teacups.”

“Unless she was bogart for good, she'd not bust up the good china. No she wouldn't!” Mug walked carefully out from between the cups and flittered sky blue wings to flutter down to Galen's shoulder. I remembered Mug now; she'd been a pet once of one sidhe or another. But when her last master had grown tired of her, Maggie had invited her into the kitchen, so she could earn an honest living and not have to cater to the whim of one of the large ones. Large one was an insulting term used by the lesser fey for the sidhe. Mug had come to the kitchen about the time I left faerie. Peasblossom, on the other hand, her I knew.

I called to her, “Peasblossom, there's no need to hide.”

Frost had moved up on the other side of the sink from Galen, who was chatting away with the tiny blue fairy on his shoulder. She'd cuddled close to his neck, hands as delicate as pale blue petals, stroking along the bareness of his ear. Mug had a real “thing” for sidhe men. I'd never asked, nor wanted to speculate, what pleasure she and her masters had gotten from each other. She was smaller than a Barbie doll and more delicate looking. I did not need the visuals. I was able to look at them and keep an eye on the curtain without staring at it. Galen gave us all a reason to look in that direction.

Frost said, “Come down, little one, so we may question you.”

The tiny face scooted back among the good china, like a mouse ducking back into its hole. Her voice was like the sighing of the wind, a delicate spring breeze that warmed the skin and made you believe that the flowers merely slept under the snow. And were not dead. Her voice brought a smile to my face before I had time to think glamour.

“I don't remember your voice being so sweet, Peasblossom,” Galen said.

“I'm frightened,” she said, as if that explained it.

Maggie May translated, “When the demi-fey be scared, they use what defense they have.”

“Their glamour,” I said.

“Aye,” she said. She was watching us all with narrowed eyes. She knew something was up.

“Come, little one,” Frost called, and even extended a hand like you'd offer a perch to a bird.

“I fear you, Killing Frost, as I fear the Darkness,” the voice said from among the cups.

“Do you fear me, Peasblossom?” I asked.

Quiet for a moment, or two, then, “No, no, I do not fear you.”

“Then come to me,” I said, and held my hand out to show I preferred a less intimate perch for her.

“You will protect me from the Darkness and the Killing Frost?” she asked.

I fought the urge to smile. It took concentration to fight off that pleasant sound. Touching would make it harder still, but I wanted her away from the sink area. She was a civilian, and if whatever was under the sink fought, I didn't want any civvies in the line of fire.

“Come, Peasblossom, I won't let them hurt you.”

“You promise?”

Doyle interrupted, “She cannot promise, for we do not know you are innocent.”

“Innocent,” she said, her voice rising with her fear, the wind clanging among chimes. “Innocent of what, Darkness?”

He stayed kneeling by Onilwyn, who had not risen to bait or answered questions. He was either that hurt or feigning. “It is but a step from finding a body to pretending to find a body that you put there.”

I frowned at him. No wonder he'd scared her.

He gave me a calm flick of his eyes, as if he saw nothing wrong with what he'd said.

Peasblossom was moaning in terror, hysterical. The illusionary wind was not warm now but cold with that icy threat of storm on its edge.

The teacups rattled with her frantic attempt to shove herself tighter against the back of the cabinet.

I had to raise my voice to be certain she could hear me. “I promise that neither Frost nor Doyle will harm you.”

Doyle said, “Merry,” as if I'd surprised him.

Silence from the teacups, then in a very neutral voice, “You promise?”

“Yes,” I said. I didn't think she was guilty of anything, but just in case, I'd promised only that Frost and Doyle would not harm her. If she took that to imply that I'd promised her none of my guards would harm her, that wasn't my fault. I was sidhe enough and fey enough to split the difference with her and not feel guilty. Every fey from least to greatest knew the kind of games we all played. To lose meant you were careless. Your own damned fault. She eased around the china cup and came to the edge of the shelf. She was one of the rare demi-fey that had skin like a human's. Her hair was dark brown, falling in waves around her face. Only the delicate black lines of antennae ruined the perfect doll look. That and the wings she flicked across her back.

Her dress looked like it was formed of brown and purple leaves, though when she stepped off the shelf the “leaves” moved like cloth. She flew toward me, and a glance from Doyle made me move farther away from the table, farther away from the curtain.

One of the other guards called, “Maggie May, could you come here for a moment?” I think if she hadn't been suspicious, she'd have argued, but she let herself be called out of the line of danger.

Peasblossom adjusted her angle to follow me and put delicate feet on the palm of my hand. Her feet were not as baby soft as Sage's had been, but her weight was like his, heaver than it should have been, as if there was more to her than a doll-size body and butterfly wings.

Ivi and Hawthorne moved in front of me, so my view was blocked, but they were offering their very bodies as shields to keep me safe. I could not protest.

Ivi whispered, “I hope I get to fuck you before you get me killed.” Hawthorne smacked him in the chest with his mailed fist.

He made an
oof
sound, then I heard cloth rip and the shouting begin.

Peasblossom darted to my shoulder, hiding in my hair, screaming wordlessly and in terror.

Such a small creature to make so much noise: I heard the men yelling, but what they yelled was lost to Peasblossom's shrill screams. The broad bodies of the guard kept me safe, but also hid the action from me, so I was left unknowing, unseeing, and could only trust that nothing too bad was happening. I took it as a good sign that the guards were still merely standing in front of me and didn't feel the need to hide me between the floor and their bodies. Things weren't deadly, yet.

Peasblossom clung to my hair and jacket, shrieking right next to my ear. I fought the urge to grab her and stop the screams. I was afraid I'd crush her wings, and with Beatrice's death, I was no longer certain what would and would not heal on the lesser fey.

I put my hand between her and my ear but jerked it away, because something pricked me, like a thorn or pin.

She stopped screaming and started apologizing. Apparently I'd caught my fingers on her rose-thorn bracelet. My fingertip held a minute spot of blood.

Doyle's deep voice cut off Peasblossom's babbling apology. “Why were you hiding from us?”

A rough male voice said, “I wasn't hiding from you; I was hiding from him.”

I tried to peer around Adair and Hawthorne, but when I tried to move around them they moved with me, blocking my view and keeping me safe.

I called, “Doyle, is it safe?”

“Hawthorne, Adair, let the princess see our prisoner.”

“Prisoner?” the rough voice said. “Princess, there's no need for that.” There was something vaguely familiar about the voice.

The two guards moved, and I was finally able to see the hairy, smallish figure Frost and Galen held between them. He was a hob, a relative to the brownie.

Harry Hob, he'd worked in the kitchens off and on for years. Off when Maggie May caught him drunk on the job, on when he could control himself. He was only about three feet tall and covered in so much thick, dark hair that it took a minute to realize he was naked.

“Why are you afraid of Onilwyn?” Doyle asked.

“I thought he'd come to kill me, the way he killed my Bea.”

I think we all took a breath and forgot to let it out.

“Did you see him do it?” Doyle asked. His deep voice fell into the silence like a stone thrown down a well. We waited for the stone to hit bottom.

But it was Onilwyn's voice that came first. “I did not.” His voice was thick, not with emotion, but with blood and the broken mess of his nose. “I did not know her well enough to kill her.” He struggled to his feet, and with no prompting from anyone, Adair and Amatheon took his arms, as if he were already a prisoner. In that moment I knew I wasn't the only one who disliked Onilwyn.

He kept protesting his innocence in that same thick voice that sounded like he had a very bad head cold, but I knew it was his own blood he was choking on.

“Silence!” Doyle said, not a yell, but his voice carried all the same.

Onilwyn was silent for a moment, until Harry Hob said, “I saw . . .”

Onilwyn cut him off. “He lies.”

Harry made himself heard then, bellowing loud enough to shake the cups on their shelves. “I lie! I lie! It takes a sidhe to be a liar inside fairie.”

Doyle stepped between them, motioning them both to silence. “Hob, did you see Onilwyn kill Beatrice?” He turned at a sound from Onilwyn. “If you interrupt again, I will have you dragged from this room.”

Onilwyn made a sound, then spat blood on the kitchen floor.

Maggie May stalked toward him with a small iron pot in her hand.

“No, Maggie,” Doyle said, “we'll have no more of your bogarting.”

“Bogarting? Why, Darkness, if you think that was bogarting, you must never have seen a true bogart.” There was something threatening in her golden eyes.

“Don't force me to have to ban you from your own kitchen, Maggie May.”

“Yo' wouldna' dare!”

He just looked at her, and the look was enough. She backed off, muttering under her breath, but she put the pot down and went to the far corner. Her dogs boiled about her feet like a furry tide.

Doyle looked back to Harry Hob. “Now, once more, did you see Onilwyn kill Beatrice or the reporter?”

“If not to finish the job, then why did he come ahead of you all into the kitchen? Why not ask him that?”

Doyle's voice was low and almost evil sounding, with an edge of a growl. “I ask you one last time, Harry. If you do not answer me straight and simply, I will let Frost shake you until some answer falls out.”