[Merry Gentry 04] - A Stroke of Midnight (23 page)

There was still blood on Galen's hand, his blood, dried, a little tacky still. Too much blood. Too much was happening in too small a space of time. Holding Galen's hand made me start to tremble. I realized in that moment that I was going to break down.

“Can you give us a few minutes, Major, please?” My voice was only a little shaky.

He started to argue, but something in my face made him simply nod and walk back down the hallway. I fought it off until he was almost out of sight, then the first sob came. I clung to Galen, felt the glamour slip away, and lost it. I cried and sobbed until I started to hyperventilate. I couldn't breathe, and my knees started to buckle. Galen took me to the ground, put his back against the wall, and let me wrap my legs around his waist, let me hold him as close as I could short of sex.

Galen stroked my hair, and said, “It's all right, it's all right.”

“Long, deep breaths, Meredith,” Frost said, kneeling beside us. “Slow your breathing or you will pass out.”

I fought the wordless, screaming panic. I fought to breathe, and couldn't do it.

Galen stroked my hair and lied to me. “It's okay, we're safe, I'm safe.” Lies, all lies. My body was screaming, “Can't breathe, can't breathe, can't breathe.”

Frost grabbed my face between his hands, held me so tight it hurt. He made me look at him. “Meredith, Meredith!” He kissed me. Maybe simply to stop the noises, or because he couldn't think of anything else to do. The Queen's Ravens are trained in weapons, hand-to-hand combat, battle strategy, even politics. Hysterical women are not on the list.

His mouth closed over mine, and I struggled against it. There was no air. I fought free of Galen's arms and clawed at Frost. He breathed a cold wind into my mouth. The moment the cold touched me, I stilled, as if my body just stopped. I think even the blood in my veins stopped. A moment of nothingness, silent, still, cold. It was like being thrown into freezing water; the shock of it stopped the hysteria, stopped everything for a moment.

Frost drew away from the kiss, and my breath rushed back in a huge, chest-hurting gasp. I took several deep, painful breaths in a row, while he held my face, and stared into my eyes, as if searching for me. His grey eyes held that tiny snowscape in them again, and I felt as if I were falling forward, falling forward into Frost's eyes. He blinked, and the sensation stopped, but some night I was going to have to see what would happen if I kept looking into those snowy eyes. But not tonight. Not tonight.

“Princess Meredith,” a woman's voice said, “I'm sorry to intrude.”

I wiped at the tearstains on my face, which didn't help, since all I succeeded in doing was putting more of Galen's blood on my face. I must have looked a horror when I turned around to face Dr. Polaski.

Her breath came out in a gasp, which let me know just how bad I looked. You don't get people who work in forensics gasping much. “Major Walters filled me in on some of what's been happening here today.” She shook her head and took her glasses off, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand.

“We do not want the general public to know what is happening inside faerie,” Frost said.

“I can keep my mouth shut.” She looked at me, and I saw something in her face that was almost pity. “Are you able to talk to me, Princess Meredith?”

I took a deep breath, and it shook a little. My voice sounded hoarse, and I had to clear it, but I finally managed, “Talk to me, Dr. Polaski, I'll listen.”

The guards parted for her to come closer to us. I was still sitting in Galen's lap, my legs wrapped around his waist. If the intimate position made her uncomfortable, she didn't show it. I stayed where I was because I still wanted to hold Galen as close as I could. It was a way of clinging to him without looking like I was clinging to him. Galen's hands rested at the small of my back.

Polaski knelt down beside us so we were eye level. “I need to know a few things, and you are the only one I can ask, but by asking, I will give away the suspect I'm most interested in.”

“Understood,” I said.

She put her glasses back on and shook her head. “I don't think you do. Walters told me that you won't put whoever I find on trial. You'll torture them or just kill them. Is this true?”

“Yes,” I said.

She waited, as if she expected me to say more. Then she smiled, and said, “No human I know would have just said yes to that. They would have felt they had to justify taking another life. They would have felt so many things.” She looked at me with those long-lashed eyes. “But you don't feel what we would feel.”

“It isn't fey versus human, Doctor, it's cultural. I was raised in a world where torture is the norm for crimes, and execution is used when necessary, though it's rare. We do not keep someone on death row for twenty years while they search for legal loopholes.”

“I've seen some awful things in my job, Princess Meredith, and there are a handful of people who I would sleep easier knowing they were dead.” She sighed. “I need your word that you will not execute the person I'm about to reveal.”

“I can't promise that, not without lying.”

“Your word that they won't be executed until I have processed the evidence we've collected.”

I looked at Frost, and Mistral beside him. “Do you think I can promise that and not be forsworn?”

“I think the queen would put weight to your word of honor, and not offend the human police,” Frost said.

“That wasn't a yes,” I said.

“A simple yes might not be true,” he said; his face was its arrogant best, empty, careful. I thought it was more for the doctor's benefit than mine.

“Mistral?” I asked.

“She is very interested of late in courting good public relations. The reporter's death is bad enough. She won't want it bandied about that we executed someone without proof.”

“So that's a yes,” I said.

He looked at Frost, they both looked back at me. Mistral said, “She's Andais, Queen of Air and Darkness.” He shrugged.

“Your word that you won't let them execute anyone until I have processed the evidence,” Polaski said.

I thought about what I could promise Polaski, and finally said, “My word that I will do everything in my power to see that no one is harmed irretrievably before you have contacted us again.”

“Harmed irretrievably.” She almost smiled. “I've never heard anyone say it like that before.”

I just looked at her, willing my face to show nothing.

“All right, I'll take your word. Don't disappoint me.”

“I'll try not to,” I said.

“Can the little faeries change shape?”

“Many of the fey have more than one form.”

“Can the little ones be big, like human size?”

“When you say ‘little,' do you mean the small, winged fey, the demi-fey?”

She nodded.

“Some of them can change form to be almost human in size. But it's rare among them.”

Galen started to massage my back. I wasn't sure who he was trying to comfort, himself or me.

“How rare?”

“Rare enough that until recently we thought they'd lost the ability.”

“We know of only one demi-fey who can do it now,” Frost said.

Polaski glanced up at him. “Here's the other question. Could some spell or bit of faerie magic interfere with what I'm seeing?”

Frost, Galen, and I exchanged glances. Frost said, “I trust Rhys to have done everything possible to protect you from overt spells.”

“But could someone have magically imposed one handprint on another?” she asked.

“They would have to understand how prints work,” I said, “so that leaves out anyone who hasn't watched television, which is most of the guard. But if they understood how prints worked, they might be able to make one print appear to look like another.”

“Would they be able to switch prints?”

“I don't believe so, but I cannot be certain,” Frost said.

Mistral said, “I do not know how these prints work, exactly, but they seem to be like tracks of an animal.”

“Not a bad analogy,” Polaski said.

“Then I agree with Frost, it would be hard to change them in reality.”

“So they're more likely to mess with what I think I'm seeing than with what I'm actually seeing?”

We all agreed on that.

“Then I need to get out of here and check my findings with a working computer outside faerie.”

“Your early questions point at one of the demi-fey on the kitchen staff,” I said.

She nodded. “But only if they can change shape so that they are as big as you. The handprint is about the size of my own hands, but matches one of the demi-fey.”

“Which one?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I won't tell you that.”

“If you don't tell us, we'll simply imprison all of them.”

“All of them?” she asked.

I nodded. “Careful for you is not falsely imprisoning someone. Careful for us is imprisoning too many to make sure we get the guilty one behind bars.”

She sighed, then nodded again. “All right, Peasblossom.”

The surprise showed on my face before I could stop it.

“Why the surprise?”

“Because she and Beatrice were very close. I've known her a long time by human standards. I can't imagine Peasblossom hurting Beatrice.”

“Then someone's messing with me because I got a handprint on Beatrice's back.” She looked up at the men. “Can I use someone as an example?”

Aisling started to step forward but I said, “Ivi.” He stepped forward with a teasing look in his eyes that I didn't like.

Aisling stepped back with a smile.

“If you could turn around, please?” Polaski said to Ivi. The man turned without a word, giving her his back. “Could you remove the cloak, please?”

“With pleasure,” he purred suggestively. He undid the neck of his cloak, and let it fall to the floor to lie across Dr. Polaski's feet. She was now looking at the full fall of his hair, medium and dark green with its pattern of white vines and leaves like his namesake.

She reached to move his hair back, but the moment she touched it, she froze.

“Stop it, Ivi,” I said.

“I have done nothing,” he said, but the smile was satisfied now, as if he was happy with the effect he was having on her.

“Step away from her,” Frost said.

“I obey the princess, not you.”

“Step away from her,” I said.

He put on his mocking smile, but his green eyes held some fierce knowledge that I did not understand. But he obeyed. The moment Polaski wasn't touching his hair, she seemed to blink awake. “Sorry, what were we saying?”

“What's happening?” I asked Frost.

“He has regained some of his old powers.”

“And that would be?”

“To say someone was like Ivi's hair was to say that they were compelling, whether you willed it or no. To be caught in ivy meant to be entrapped. To be ivy climbed meant that your lover was destroying you in some way,” Frost said.

“I don't remember any of these sayings,” I said.

“You would have no reason to know them,” Hawthorne said. “It has been centuries since we spoke of Ivi in this manner.”

“No wonder you look so terribly satisfied,” I said.

“I have gained much simply by being in the hallway with you while you . . .”

“Enough,” Frost said, “we are not alone.”

Ivi dropped to his knees in front of me. “I would do anything to be in your bed for a night, for an hour.” His eyes weren't mocking now. His face was as serious as he ever got.

“Get up,” I said.

“The queen likes us on our knees.”

“Well, I don't.”

I looked at Frost. “Who can she touch without a problem, just in case?”

“Hawthorne will do as he is told, and his enchantment is more active magic,” Frost said.

I nodded. “Hawthorne, go help the doctor demonstrate.”

He went to her, having to walk around the pool of hair that had spread around Ivi's kneeling body.

“You must choose two of the green men, let me be one of them,” Ivi said.

“Don't make the princess ask you twice. Get up,” Mistral said.

Hawthorne gave his armored back to the doctor. “I guess the armor doesn't make a difference for this.” She touched the smooth crimson armor tentatively, then with more assurance, as if she'd expected something to happen. “Beatrice was stabbed here.” She pointed to a place on his back where you'd be almost certain to get the heart. “The knife went in deep.” She left two fingers at the spot where the knife went in, then placed her other hand flat alongside it. “I have an almost perfect handprint right here, where someone braced to take out a deeply embedded blade. I have almost the same print pattern on the second victim. But I also have partial fingerprints where the knife was wiped clean of blood. They may or may not be Peasblossom's.”

“If we are sure it is her print, then she would be our murderer,” I said.

“Yes, but if she is, then where's the blade? Rhys traced it to your bottomless pit. The other kitchen help say that once Peasblossom found the bodies, she didn't leave the area. She didn't have time to go all the way to your pit to dispose of the knife.”

“Someone else did it for her,” Mistral said.

“We found one good, clear handprint on the wall near the reporter's body. It doesn't match any of the guards in the hallway, but the hand is of a similar size.”

“Sidhe,” Adair said.

“Probably,” she said.

“So either Peasblossom is a ruthless killer and had an accomplice, or the killer is imposing her print over his to hide his guilt.”

She nodded.

“Can't we check her for spells?” Galen said.

Frost shook his head. “We have no one with us who is good enough at subtle magic. Humans tend to reek of magic once they've been in the underground for an hour or more. To differentiate between the things that might simply cling and those that are deliberate we would need Doyle, or Crystall, or Barinthus.”