Silver Skin (A Cold Iron Novel) (5 page)

Helene remembered the small black hoops Beth wore all the time now. She had admired them when she first noticed them, never realized that iron could be worked so delicately. They must have been a gift from Conn—a gift of power. More meaningful than any glittering jewel, from such a creature.

She filed this arresting knowledge away for the future and directed Miach to the employee parking lot behind the museum. The classical granite facade in front was rather grand, but Helene rarely entered that way. Her offices were around the back in a wing of practical yellow brick. Together they entered through the loading dock, where the traveling shows departed and visiting works of art arrived in their custom-built crates.

Helene hadn’t considered what excuse she could give the watchman on duty for bringing Miach to view the security footage, but in the end, she didn’t need to supply one. Miach simply asked the security supervisor, in that resonant, irresistible voice, to queue up the footage for the days Helene specified. The guard smilingly complied, with the air of a man pouring a cup of coffee for a friend.

The room where the security monitors and computers were kept was really a glorified closet with a desk crammed in beneath a rack of spare uniforms. There was only one chair, and Miach insisted that Helene take it. Then he stood behind her and bent over her shoulder every time he shuffled through the footage.

“Your assailant,” he said after they had spent an hour in that tiny room, watching the comings and goings of thousands of visitors, “took pains to not be seen.”

“There must be a way to find him,” she said, trying to keep the fear out of her voice. It was horrible to see herself again on the tape, walking toward a rendezvous with whoever was summoning, controlling her. Who was he? What did he want; what did he do with her? What might he do the
next
time? The whole thing chilled her to the bone.

Still standing behind her, Miach turned her swiveling chair to face him and crouched in front of her. “I will not let this Fae take you again. Even if that means doing things to keep you safe that you will hate me for. If we cannot find a clue here today, I will search you for the
geis
. I’ll put you out, if you prefer that—”

“No.”

“Or ask Nieve to be there so you feel more comfortable, but if we can find no trace of this Fae here, then it must be done. Or you must consent to stay in my home, or accept Elada into yours. But first, I want to see the key-card records for the hours that you can’t remember.”

“Why?”

“When this Fae summoned you, from what we have seen on the tapes, you didn’t leave the museum. But you went somewhere inside the building where the cameras didn’t see you. It’s possible we can discover where based on your key-card entries.”

He was very good at this. He had manipulated the security footage with surprising ease as well. “How do you know so much about this kind of thing?” she asked. “About security cameras and key-card records?”

“Simple. I’m a criminal, Helene. And while people can be glamoured, computers and cameras can’t.”

She requested the key-card log from the watchman. While they were waiting for it to print out, an unsettling thought occurred to her.

“The gifts you sent me—” she began.

“Not stolen,” he said quickly. “I wouldn’t endanger you that way.”

“I’m not talking about the fur coat. Or the dishwasher your men installed before Beth made you promise to stop stalking me.”

“That,” he conceded, “might have fallen off the back of a truck, as such things do. But I didn’t realize that dishwasher installation counted as stalking,” he added, amusement plain on his angular face.

“It does when you break into my apartment to do it.”

“Your locks were in good working order when my men left.”

“It wasn’t just the locks,” she said. “There was that trustee, the one who the museum’s director, Marty, was always encouraging to call me. The one who thought that writing a check to the museum entitled him to fringe benefits. The one who kept showing up at my apartment, waiting for me at my car.” She felt a little anxioius again just thinking about the man. “I didn’t know what to do about him. If I had gotten a restraining order, it would have cost me my job. But he was mugged just off campus one night. It was in the police blotter. And it happened on one of those nights when he was waiting for me at my car. I had to threaten to call security to get him to leave. After that, he never bothered me again. For a long time I thought he left me alone because I’d threatened him with calling security, but that wasn’t it, was it? That was your doing.”

Miach shrugged, but he didn’t deny it. “The square is dangerous at night,” he said. “And an incident like armed robbery will cause a man to rethink a lot of his own behavior. He never bothered you again. And he didn’t withdraw his support from the museum.”

“That isn’t the point,” she said. “And you didn’t stop, did you? The new windows couldn’t have come from my condo association, no matter what the trustees said, because no one else in the building got them. And a parking space in the museum lot opened up, even though no one left the staff. Now that I think of it, my raise was suspicious, too. Everyone knows Dave Monroe is tightfisted with salaries. That was your doing, wasn’t it?”

“Does it matter?” asked Miach. “You needed new windows, and you have them. You work too late to be parking on the street. You deserved a raise, and you got one.”

“Beth made you promise to leave me alone.”

“And so I did. I never visited your home or your place of work myself. Never directly violated her prohibition. And I’m not doing so now, because it is you who came to me.”

Fae oaths, she was coming to realize, were even trickier than she had thought. She had to remain on her guard with this man.

They scrutinized the key-card printout together.

“What is Storage Three?” Miach asked.

“It’s one of the vaults in the basement. A bit of a hodgepodge in there. Greek, Roman, and Celtic antiquities.”

“You appear to have visited it during every one of your blackouts, except the initial one immediately after the gala.”

“That’s impossible. I never go down there.”

“Someone used your key card to gain access, whether you were with them or not. Whatever your assailant wants, it’s probably down there. Let’s go.”

“I can’t.”

Miach’s brows knit. “Why not?”

“It’s too . . . close down there.” She couldn’t stand confined spaces. Couldn’t breathe in them.

“Surely you must have to go into the vaults sometimes? For your work?”

She shook her head. “I can almost always find a reason not to,” she said.

Miach hesitated. “Helene, this is our best chance to discover what this Fae has been doing—and to free you from him.”

“I don’t do well underground. Here”—she handed him her key card—“you go. I’ll stay up here.”

“And if he summons you? He may already have felt the destruction of the
geis
on your shoulder. Could be planning to kill you to cover his tracks. I can’t just leave you alone.”

“I can’t go down there.”

Miach reached for his cell phone. “That doesn’t leave a lot of options. Elada has to guard you.”

The thought sent her into a further panic. Her mind flooded with the images and sensations of her last encounter with the brawny Fae warrior, when he’d been on Beth Carter’s trail, trying to kill her. He’d compelled Helene into his car, left her there for hours, unable to move or call out.

“No. No Elada.”

“Our best shot here is to investigate that storage, but I can’t leave you alone up here. If you won’t accept Elada’s protection for an hour or so, then the only choice left is for us to return to South Boston and search your body for spells.” Something in Miach’s eyes suggested that he didn’t much mind reverting to the hands-on approach, now that it was on the table again.

She had to make a choice. She reasoned that at least the basement couldn’t control her mind, wouldn’t tempt her to do things she’d regret later. “Storage,” she said.

Miach’s soft sigh seemed to validate her suspicions. “Probably for the best.”

Helene turned toward the back of the museum where the stairs led down to the vault below. There was an elevator, but it was an old-fashioned cage-style affair, and the last time she’d gotten in it, she and Beth had been fleeing for their lives from Elada.

Miach placed a hand on her arm to stop her. “I could make it easier for you, the fear of enclosed spaces.”

He’d made a similar offer once before, after rescuing her from the attic where Brian had held her. He’d said he could take the memory away. In the months since the incident she’d been tempted by the idea, but she knew what that was like now, to have a blank space in your head.

“No thank you,” she said.

“I’m not offering to remove the fear. Just to use to my voice to suggest that you’ll feel safe, downstairs, with me.”

“But it would be a lie,” she said. “And, Miach, I really wish that bothered you as much as it does me.”

She led him to the stairs, forcing herself to go first, even though the dim halogen lights were still warming up and it was a descent into gloomy darkness with a man at her back she did not entirely trust.

• • •

M
iach didn’t like dragging Helene
into the basement, but it was a fact that their options
were
narrowing. If they couldn’t find some clue to this Fae’s identity, they would be left with no choices that didn’t involve violating Helene’s will in some unforgiveable fashion. If it came to it, and her life hung in the balance, he knew he would do it—and destroy all chance of getting her into his bed. Not just because she was Beth Carter’s friend, and he needed Beth Carter’s help to shore up the wall between worlds. But because he
liked
Helene Whitney.

He liked her for the very reasons that kept them apart. He liked her because she was loyal to her friends, because she was smart enough to understand the danger he represented, because she was strong willed enough to resist a Fae. If he were as self-delusional as many of his race, he would tell himself that this was all the more reason to pursue her for the thrill of a difficult chase. And to take her, for the hunter eats what he kills.

But he had lived among men long enough to know that a victory over Helene’s will would be an empty one. He would not be winning Helene Whitney, the flamboyant assured woman he wanted, but a broken creature.

She had to choose him, and choose him she would, for herself.

The storage vaults, he was unsurprised to find, were indeed dungeon-like, tucked in the basement of a gothic revival building that took its gloominess seriously. Miach rather enjoyed the atmosphere, but he could see why Helene, with her fear of enclosed spaces, would refuse to enter.

She had forged ahead boldly at first, but now that they were in the narrow brick tunnel with the low arched ceiling that led to the actual vaults, her breathing had become ragged. Miach disliked seeing such a brave creature brought low by incapacitating fear, but he would not call it irrational.

He had been tortured by the Druids for months, shackled to a cold stone wall, and could not stand to be bound now for any reason. He understood how deeply imprinted such aversions could be. He resisted the impulse to touch her mind, to blunt her fear, and even the stronger impulse to touch her physically, to offer the most direct kind of comfort.

Instead, he asked, “Are you all right?”

She nodded, mute.

“You look pale,” he said. “Well, paler gold, at least.” He hoped the gentle humor reached her.

“I’ll be fine when we’re in the open part of the vault.”

They reached a set of double doors, much newer than the walls surrounding them, and Helene let them in with her key card. Once they were inside, floor to ceiling shelves confronted them, row upon row. The museum’s curators used some arcane catalog system to keep track of their treasures. The aisles were marked with strings of letters and numbers that probably meant something to Beth Carter and her colleagues.

Miach didn’t need them. The pull of Fae magic, coming from the shadowy depths of the vault, was strong enough to guide him.

It drew him to the mouth of the widest aisle, flanked on either side by warehouse-size palates containing large sculptures. The far end was shrouded in darkness.

“What’s down there?” he asked.

“That’s the staging area for exhibits.” She took a deep breath. “The space is a little more open, more comfortable for me down there.”

They followed the aisle to the darkened end of the bay. Miach found a light switch along the wall.

The fluorescents flickered on and revealed a heap of ancient stones, pale granite, carved with swirling patterns of whorls and dots. A casual observer would take them for a random collection of Celtic monuments, but Miach knew they were not. Anything but.

The stones were weathered and chipped now, but they had once fit together seamlessly to form that most powerful of all Druid constructs: a solstice gate.

The kind of gate that could open a doorway in the wall between worlds. The kind of gate that could free the captive Fae.

Chapter 4

M
iach walked around the solstice gate, examining the monoliths. The structure was incomplete at the moment, but the base stones had been laid out correctly. The measurements and angles were exact. He could tell that much because, to one with his sensibilities, the construct already hummed with power.

There were dozens of other gates like this one in the world, mostly in Europe and the British Isles, some so weathered or overgrown, obscured by the changing landscape, as to be unrecognizable. Some were too damaged to function at all, but many remained practicable.

Up to last year they had posed little threat, because there were no Druids left to open them and the only Fae sorcerer aboveground powerful enough to do so was Miach—and he did not want the Queen and her Court back.

Then Beth Carter had come along, with her Druid heritage and self-taught, novice skills. And with her had come Conn of the Hundred Battles, the Betrayer, whose mythic sword also had the power to open the gates, although he was bound through a terrible curse, by the threat of living entombment, to protect the sword and keep them all closed.

Solstice gates, of course, were almost always part of a Druid temple mound, although a few were built into the sides of natural hills or mountains. But they could be anywhere, as long as they were sited along ley lines—the mystical vectors that crisscrossed the earth and could be realigned to form a bridge between this world and the next, between the world of men and the prison plane of the Fae.

Miach didn’t doubt for a second that this one was aligned on such a path and that the material to complete it was at hand. The forklift parked in the alcove and the stack of crates lined neatly up beside it strongly suggested as much.

Helene joined him in the staging areas. She was breathing easier now, the open space of the vault with its soaring ceiling less challenging to her than the crammed aisles they had traveled earlier. She put her hand on one of the stones and traced one of the graven whorls.

“Did your people make these?” she asked.

“No. They are Druid work,” Miach said. “The stones form a door, usually the entrance to a temple mound.” Like the one in which the Druids had imprisoned him. So long ago, yet he still bore the scars.

She scrutinized him. “You’re the one who looks pale now,” she said. “Paler.”

“They are not happy memories,” said Miach. “And I doubt that your assailant is putting this gate together out of archaeological interest. If it’s correctly sited, and I’ll wager it is, then the application of the right magic will open a gate and free the imprisoned Fae.”

There were few beings alive who could apply the right magic, of course, but one of them, Beth Carter, worked in this building. Only a few months ago, the Prince Consort had kidnapped Beth and tried to force her to open one of the gates. The clever little Druid had turned the tables on the Queen’s lover by opening the gate in one direction only—and hurling him through.

And the Prince Consort had only managed to abduct Beth because she had become separated from Conn—and because Miach had been trying to kill her, not protect her. Now things were different. It would be next to impossible to spirit Beth Carter away, to drag her to a temple mound and force her to use her magic. She was learning to use her own power, and even if she lacked complete control of it, she had allies like Conn and Miach to protect her while she mastered the craft.

But it would be all too easy to ambush her here, in this remote chamber.

“I’m afraid that your Fae antagonist has been preparing a surprise for Beth Carter. Clever, really. It would be difficult for any common Fae to kidnap her and bring her to a solstice gate
in situ
before Conn ran them to ground. Few can carry a human with them when they pass, like the Prince Consort. But this Fae, he was planning to lie in wait for her down here, a place she would presume was safe.”

• • •

H
elene felt a flash of
white-hot anger. It obliterated, for a second, the helplessness she had been feeling for weeks. This creature who had been tormenting her, stealing hours of her life, had been plotting to ambush her best friend.

There had to be something she could do about it.

“These stones must have been down here for decades,” she said. “The crates are marked with the old catalog system. We haven’t used that since the twenties. How did this Fae even find out they were here?”

“Your museum has an online catalog now, does it not?” Miach asked.

“Yes.” She had secured the funding for it herself, two years ago.

“So anyone,” said Miach, “anywhere in the world, could search your collections by keyword. Beth Carter has been drawn to Fae relics her whole life. It’s part of her Druid heritage. It’s why she studied our remains, how she chose her profession, and even how she ended up working in this museum. You have one of the best Celtic collections in the world. One sure to contain at least a few objects of power. And a Fae who was looking for something powerful, for a weapon to use against Beth Carter, would soon discover that you owned not just a few ensorcelled blades or trinkets but a complete—or near enough to work—solstice gate.”

“Would it still work,” she asked, “if that stone”—she pointed to the lintel, with its frenzy of geometric carvings—“was broken?”

“No,” said Miach.

“Good.”

She knew how to run the forklift, because it was all hands on deck when an exhibit was running behind and an opening date loomed. She swung herself up into the cab, found the keys, got the engine running, and raised the platform to the height of the lintel slab. She drove the lift forward, until the fork was touching the lintel stone, and then she stepped on the gas pedal. The stone groaned as the lift pushed it forward, grinding against the blocks below. Then it fell, a good eight feet, to the concrete floor below.

The lintel struck with a loud crash, but it didn’t break or explode into dust. Frustrated, Helene backed the lift into its original position and turned the engine off. She leaped down from the cab to find Miach standing over the lintel waiting for her.

“Remind me not to make you angry,” he said.

“Why didn’t it break?” Helene asked.

“They are more than stones. They’re magical constructs. They can’t be destroyed, only scattered.”

And it would be the work of an hour, maybe less, to put it back together again.

“Beth shouldn’t come back, should she?” said Helene. She wanted her best friend here with her, to help navigate this strange world and its terrors, but not at the price of her safety.

“No. She shouldn’t. Not until we find out who planned this little surprise for her. And remove you from his power. But Beth is already on her way. Our only choice is to find out who is doing this before she gets here.”

“You want to search my body for the
geis
,” she guessed. And it was no longer just her own safety at issue. Her attacker was after Beth, too.

“Yes. I’m afraid I do. If he has used that kind of magic on you, a
geis
, I should be able to discover his identity.
Gaesa
are like handwriting. They are distinctive. Even if I don’t know who this Fae is, Finn or Deirdre might.”

“Who are Finn and Deirdre?” she asked. Knowing Conn, Miach, and Elada was enough. She wasn’t certain she wanted any other Fae in her life.

“Finn controls Charlestown. We are in a state of uneasy truce at the moment.”

“And Deirdre?”

Miach hesitated. And completely irrationally, she felt a pang, then a slow burn of jealousy. Finally Miach said, “Deirdre is a friend.”

“You mean she is your lover.”

Miach shrugged. “The Fae are long lived. Humans are like mayflies. Yes, Deirdre has been my lover, at times. You will understand why should you ever meet her. She will be my lover again in the future. The
Tuatha Dé Danann
are not made for monogamy.”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For reminding me of all the reasons I don’t want you.” She turned her back on him and walked away, up the wide aisle they had traveled earlier.

“Helene,” he called out.

She stopped and turned.

“We’re not done here. I can feel other items on the shelves, things that could be used by this Fae. I need to find and remove them.”

“Do it,” she said. “I’ll be in my office.”

“You shouldn’t be alone.”

“I’ll put a chair under the doorknob.”

“And if this Fae summons you?” he asked. “If he’s worked the kind of spell I fear, you’ll remove the chair yourself. Like a good little drone. You’ll probably speak and act normally, so that no one will notice what you are doing. But you won’t let anyone or anything stop you from obeying his summons.”

“Then mark me,” she said. Helene didn’t want to spend another minute in his presence. Didn’t want to be reminded of her own stupidity and weakness. She had almost been taken in by him. His charisma, his magnetism, was difficult to resist, and the intensity of his interest had drawn her close, made her feel special. But it was the interest of a child in a new toy: selfish, and transient.

If wearing one of his scribbles would allow her to enjoy some privacy in relative safety, she could put up with some magical graffiti for a few hours.

“Are you certain?” he asked. He took a step back even as his features took on a feral, hungry cast.

“Mark me like you did at Beth’s apartment. So you can find me again. That way I can spend some time in my office.
Alone
.”

He nodded. “That would be acceptable.”

She took him to her office. She doubted after seeing his home in South Boston that he would like the spare, modern space she had designed for herself in the museum’s newest wing, an extension of gleaming steel and glass finished in shades of white and pale blue.

Her office itself was visually simple, decorated in textures that were meant to engage the senses: embossed Japanese paper panels on the wall, a medley of cotton and silk fibers, the velvet nap of the sheared pile carpet, the soft, white leather of the low-slung chairs.

Miach took it all in with one glance and then smiled when he saw the window: a single plate of glass that made up one whole wall of the room. A marriage of art and technology, with a fine view of the garden below. It made the space, even on the second floor, feel open to the outside world. The antithesis of the claustrophobic storage vaults beneath the old galleries. In here, she could breathe.

She opened the desk drawer that was filled with pens and markers. Miach searched them, then playfully held up a novelty marker, bright pink, with a fuzzy cap on the end.

He was trying to charm her, to worm his way back into her good graces. “
No
,” she said, to both the novelty marker and the effort it represented.

“I didn’t think so. This one suits, though.”

A silver pen. Another novelty. One she used on party invitations. Her favorite writing instrument in the drawer, actually. An indulgence of sorts, a flourish that made light work of the tediousness of addressing envelopes. And he had picked it out unerringly.

He reached for her hand, intending to draw the mark on her arm.

“Not so visible,” she said. “Most of my summer work dresses are sleeveless.” And the thought of walking across campus in a jacket during an August heat wave was deeply unappealing.

“Where, then?” he asked. “Where I placed it before?”

To her annoyance she felt the very spot, high on her inner thigh where Miach’s mark had been, tingle and flush again with warmth. This time she willed that warmth, with mixed success,
not
to travel.

“Are there certain places that work best? Like the ley lines?”

“I’d very much like to say
yes
. But, no. Not really.” His little smile, and wistful tone, were exasperating.

“Then lets skip the sexy-time option, shall we? Put it over the one that bastard gave me, the one your wards burned off.”
Obliterating it.

She turned and presented her back to Miach.

He stepped behind her, and hesitated. Then he lifted her hair and draped it over her left shoulder, the movement more sensual than she expected. He looped a finger under her tank top strap and pulled it down slowly, almost reverently. She found herself anticipating the kiss of the pen against her skin, the glide of it over her back.

Which was wrong. She needed to remember what he was. Ancient, jaded, inhuman. If she let him, he would use her.

But the minute the ink-slick tip of the pen touched her back, she knew that she would enjoy it, enjoy having his mark on her. Knew that it was disingenuous to pretend that sex was something he would take and she would give. Acknowledged, even if only to herself, that there were things
she
would like to use
him
for.

Images flooded her mind, and her body heated in response. Miach straining over her. Helene arching her lower back to meet him. A frenzy of thrusting and sweating, her heels digging into his muscular buttocks.

The pen flew over her back, fast as a signature, and then it was over, and the images faded. He pulled the strap back over her shoulder. She took a moment before turning to get her breathing back under control. He would know anyway how much the contact had affected her, would suspect how much she wished she could have him, free of consequences.