Summer (19 page)

Summer jumped to her feet, hand cupping
Buairt’s
hilt. Brother Daniel shifted his bulk from the wall, swelling almost as tall as the angry
sidhe
. Lolo had Winter’s Glock in his right hand and was pointing it at the dog who’d risen from its place by on the floor and was flashing gigantic, wet fangs at Hannah. It growled.

Hannah was the only person in the room who seemed to shrink. Her fingertips spat sluggish sparks, but they fizzled on the mud-packed floor. The changeling pulled her shoulders up against her ears and curled in on herself even as she edged behind the wooden chair.

“I’m important,” she insisted, but she wouldn’t look at the looming
sidhe
or the woman’s quivering hound.  “You’ll see.”

“I know what you are. You’ve her likeness. I see it now.” The
sidhe’s
mouth pulled in a snarl. “A lost sister or forgotten cousin. Beware.” She set her hand on the black dog’s head; he’d come to lean against her thigh, growing deep in his chest. Strings of froth dripped from his muzzle. “There’s naught to say
she’ll
be pleased to see your face. She’ll kiss you for lost kin or kill you for jealousy. If I were you I’d hope for the second.”

Summer liked dogs but the
sidhe’s
hound was giving her goosebumps. The animal had grown along with its mistress and seemed large as a pony. There was a flash of red in its rolling eye and its tail flexed and curled like a cat’s or a serpent. It watched Hannah with single-minded intensity, but when Lolo shifted nervously its growl deepened in clear warning.

“Sorry. We’re sorry.” Summer thought she should probably draw her sword but she also thought once she did she’d have to use it. “Hannah didn’t mean anything. She’s just naturally rude. Hannah, say you’re sorry. Lolo”—she hissed out of the corner of her mouth when the dog flicked its tail—”put the gun away. I don’t think he likes it.”

Hannah muttered something that might have been an apology but the
sidhe
woman ignored her. Instead she bent over Summer, her blue eyes drawing stars from the tiny universe above their heads.

“Who are you?” she demanded. “Not what I first supposed, I think. Come back across the Way, aye, but with more than the usual commerce. Queen’s kin when we believe her family dead and well waked. Wright-wrought scabbard, but the blade beneath aches like a rotten tooth. Mortal child with human technology in hand and the will to use it and no Glamour on his heart to keep us safe.” The
sidhe
stretched her arms out and around like she wanted to pull Summer into an embrace only she kept reaching, thinning to mist, all but clawed hands and sharp teeth. “I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.”

“Run!” Brother Dan cried. “Get out!”

Hannah screamed and darted for the red door, running straight through the
sidhe’s
cloudy form. She screamed again, this time in pain. Blood burst across her back. Strips of her sweater fell away, leaving behind great welts on her pale skin. Lolo howled and put himself between the changeling and the
sidhe’s
talons, but the dog sprang at his throat, slavering jaws stretched wide.

Just like in those Matrix movies Winter loved, time seemed to slow to molasses. Summer saw the curve of the dog’s spine as it braced itself for the killing strike. Using both hands, Lolo aimed the Glock, and squeezed the trigger.

But the gun was empty. Summer couldn’t believe Lolo had forgotten. She wanted to yell at him for being stupid, but when she opened her mouth time sped up again, back to normal and then too fast. Lolo went down beneath the dog without a sound. Hannah crashed through the red door, knocking it open, and fell through. Sunlight pierced the windowless hut, catching ghostly wisps of
sidhe
where it coiled across the floor and around Brother Daniel’s ankles.

Brother Dan started reciting something in Latin. The starlight in the rafters winked out. The
sidhe
woman hissed and started to grow solid again. The dog on the floor above Lolo whined and coughed.

“No,” Summer said. She meant to shout but the word was hardly more than a croak past a tongue gone dry. She tried again, “No!” and yanked
Buairt
from her belt.

The sword shed its scabbard eagerly, coming at once to Summer’s hand.

Summer didn’t hesitate. She set her jaw and clenched both hands around the
Buairt’s
hilt and plunged it down with all her strength into the black dog, parting flesh and cracking bone.

“Jesus Christ!” Lolo rolled sideways and out from under the convulsing hound. He was covered shoulder to thigh in blood and his face was the color of the Hudson on a foggy day. Winter’s gun hung loose in his hand.
“María Madre de Dios
, it’s already dead, okay! Be careful with that thing!”

Summer’s mouth worked helplessly. She felt traitorous tears spill over onto her cheeks but couldn’t wipe them away.
Buairt
was stuck in the ground beneath the dog and no matter how desperately she tugged, she couldn’t pull the sword free.

“Summer!” Lolo shrilled. “Look out!”

Summer turned her head in time to see the
sidhe
woman whirling, a tunnel cloud of burning blue eyes and fang and claw. Brother Dan, bleeding from his nose and chin, charged after in stubborn pursuit. Summer pulled desperately at
Buairt’s
hilt, but still the sword stuck. She looked away from the howling
sidhe
, then set a foot hard on the dog’s ribcage and strained.

Buairt
popped free just as the
sidhe
swooped past Summer’s right shoulder, so close Summer could feel cold breath on her neck. Summer stumbled backward, sat down hard on the floor, the sword lifted in both hands and dripping dark fluid from tip to hilt. It didn’t look at all like blood.

And just like that it was over.

The
sidhe
turned from mist to solid and collapsed to the packed-mud floor. She fell to her knees and then to her hands. Slowly, as though pressed by an unbearable weight, she lay flat on her face in the dirt, chest rising as she drew air in panicked gasps.

“Kill me, then,” she said through gritted teeth. “Strike me through as you did my loyal Collum and may this hag’s curse be on thy head.
Siúl sa dorchadas i gcónaí
.
”

“Donde haya oscuridad, que lleve la luz,”
Brother Dan retorted quietly. “‘Where there is darkness, there will be light.” Swiping blood from his upper lip, he squatted over the fallen woman. “Your curse has no power here.”

“Kill me,” the
sidhe
rasped. Her eyes were slits of blue hatred. “I welcomed you over my threshold and you’ve brought death into my home.” Summer could almost see the life seeping from the woman’s pores, sucked away by the hungry blade in her hand. As if sensing Summer’s horror, the
sidhe
rolled her eyes, trying but unable to lift her head. “Who are you?” she wondered, hoarse. “That you can resist its pull? What are you?”

“No one.” Still holding
Buairt
out, Summer backed carefully toward the open door. Lolo followed, but not before snatching up the bundle of brown robes.

“We need them,” he explained when Summer scowled. “She was right. We need a disguise.” He shrugged, unrepentant. “Also, you should probably kill her.”

The jut of his chin made Summer think he was just trying to be brave and didn’t really mean it, but she wasn’t sure. She was afraid he was right.

“No,” Brother Dan said. “Leave her. The sword’s done its job; she’ll be of no danger to anyone for quite some time, assuming she manages to rally at all. Mind your language, Lorenzo. Summer, come outside and clean your blade on the grass. The day’s not getting longer and who can guess how far Hannah’s run.”

The friar stood. He stepped around the
sidhe
and over her dead hound and out the door, pulling Lolo after. Summer took a deep breath. The woman on the ground continued to stare, although her blue eyes were growing vacant. Summer thought she should probably apologize again.

Instead, she bit the inside of her cheek hard until she tasted salt. The pain made it easier to breathe, to turn her back on the woman and leave the windowless hut.

There was a door at the top of the Long Stair, the first real door Richard had seen since they’d stepped foot in
Reilig na Rí.
The door was molded bronze all around, arched at the top and set into the rock wall with an almost seamless accuracy that Richard couldn’t help but find impressive.

William had taken over the lamp. He held it as high as possible against the low ceiling, letting light warm the bronze. Time had given the door a rich patina
, turning it more green than yellow. Richard saw that there were patterns in the aging whorls and swirls of color that reminded him vaguely of Van Gogh’s
Starry Night.

“My work,” William said when he caught Richard staring. “I say mine. But in truth it took two of us to shape the metal and three more to work the hinges. The most difficult thing was convincing the Host to give up swords and shields for the melting. By then we’d run out of an honest source.”

Richard reached past feathers and swept his remaining hand across the door’s surface. The metal felt cold and greasy against his fingertips. He didn’t see a lock or latch. Still, he thought it was very beautiful and well made.

Aine had more pressing concerns. “How is it unlocked? Have you a key?” She nudged the door with her foot. The bottom of her shoe left an imprint in the patina. Richard opened his mouth on a protest that she could so callously mar a work of art, but before he could speak the print faded away as if it had ever existed.

“Locked to you.” Water-Bearer said, “Never to the denizens of this mountain.” It shifted Richard in its arms then leaned one shoulder against bronze. The door swung inwards without so much as a scrape of protest.

William snorted and ushered Aine through after. Richard heard a puff of breath and the clank of metal on stone: the lantern, blown out and set aside because there was no longer need for candlelight. Richard was impressed a second time at the tightness of the door’s seams, because while not a sliver of light had trickled through onto the Long Stair, the room beyond was ablaze.

The
draiochta
dulled his mind so that it took Richard longer than he liked before he understood what he was looking at.

“The Gate,” he said. “It’s the top of your Gate, the upper limit.” Now that he recognized the portal he felt the heat of the room, the warmth radiating off walls and floor and ceiling. The room was hardly wider than the pulsing flame itself, no bigger than ten feet square, and the ceiling so low it barely skirted the Gate’s pinnacle.

“Did you build the mountain all about it, then?” Aine wondered. Richard blinked. He hadn’t realized such a thing was possible.

“To protect it from the poisons of this world,” Water-Bearer agreed. It bent at the waist and set Richard down on the floor, then straightened again and stretched its wings as much as possible in the small space, groaning a little as it did so. “Our first and most imperative of magics, as the
doiteain
domhain
began to tear it apart as soon as we fell through.” Malice made the
sluagh’s
alien face more dangerous than usual. “I imagine Gloriana had planned it thusly, that particular destruction. But we were too quick and too powerful. Even so, so many of us faltered in the doing.”

“The bones in the walls,” Richard guessed, dragging himself upright with his good arm. He sat on his knees, the floor warm beneath his thighs.

“So many dead,” Aine said at the same time. She sounded more awestruck than sorry.

“We kept it from collapsing,” Water-Bearer agreed. “It was a near thing, but we kept it alive.” The
sluagh
regarded the wavering white radiance with his single eye. The fingerling tentacles in his other eye writhed and stretched, reaching toward the portal. “Aye, and I’d resigned myself to ending on this side of the cursed thing.  But you were a pleasant riddle, apostate. The most distracting of surprises.”

“You mean Aine.” It hurt to sit upright so Richard lowered himself carefully prone on his back. The throb in the stump of his elbow seemed to echo the pulse of the Gate. Pain was creeping close again. He thought it might be time for another drink from William’s flask.

“Nay,” Water-Bearer purred. “I mean you, Richard. Trickster lad, you slip beneath the notice of this malignant world, you make the impossible possible.”

“I’m a spark plug,” Richard decided without enthusiasm.

The wright laughed. “If you like. I suspect it’s the opposite. You’ve managed to diminish yourself so far beneath the gaze of the gods, those around you step out of time as well. Allowing strong magic where normally the
doiteain
domhain
would interfere.”

Beneath the gaze of the gods
, Richard thought. He discovered he liked the lonely sound of it.

“Shall we proceed?” William suggested. “I fear even a blocked passage won’t keep the Prince back forever. The Host will dig their way through by fang and claw once they realize exactly where you’ve taken their Mender, Miach.”

As if on cue Water-Bearer stiffened, head cocked, and Richard realized the sound in the chamber had changed. Where before only the muted thrumming of the Gate echoed through the stone, now he thought he could hear the rasp of claw through the mountain wall and even, unbelievably, the sough of wings on the other side of stone.

“They’re outside the spire,” Aine gasped. “You were wrong, wright. They
can
still fly so high.”

“Desperation,” Water-Bearer agreed as Richard sat up again in alarm. “I think we’d best begin.”

Richard saw his first blood sacrifice the day Winter turned fifteen and Lolo and Richard stole two bottles of Moet & Chandon from Capitol Wines in celebration. Up until that point life with Winter had been mostly snuffing
sluagh
and chasing after the occasional unusual criminal on the MPDC’s dime.

They took the bottles and several bags of Thai takeout into the National Gallery after closing, because Richard wanted to touch Michelangelo’s
David-Apollo
before it moved on. Winter liked the Gallery in general and said he supposed it was as fine a place to get drunk as any. Lolo said he didn’t give a shit where they celebrated so long as he got to eat all the cashew peanut.

They slipped in just before the gallery doors were locked for the night and ate their dinner at the foot of the statue. The inside of the building was kept pleasantly cool for the sake of the exhibits and after an August day spent sweltering in the Metro tunnels, the change in temperature was pleasant enough to send Lolo into a doze, peanut sauce still sticky on his mouth and hands. Winter was working his way through the first bottle of brut and Richard, cradling its twin, had just about decided that the unfinished marble sculpture was more likely David than Apollo when Winter sat suddenly upright and hissed a warning.

Richard, who was confident enough in his knack to suppose they wouldn’t be discovered even if one of the night guardsmen stepped smack in the middle of Winter’s
pad thai
, mouthed a question.  Lolo stopped snoring and opened his eyes.

“Someone’s here,” Winter whispered. He sat the bottle of Moet on the ground and climbed to his feet. Probably only Richard would have noticed that the
sidhe
was less than his usual, graceful self. He wasn’t clumsy, never that, but he staggered a little over his own feet. Richard was secretly delighted to learn that fairy princes were not immune to good champagne.

“Not a guard,” Winter said when Richard rolled his eyes. “Someone else. Something else. Something’s…you know…”

“Up?” Lolo suggested. He’d refused to touch the alcohol and as a result was more alert than Winter and Richard combined. “Cool. Do you think it’s an art heist? I hope it’s an art heist!, like in that Thomas Crown movie.”

Richard looked up at the blinking red eye in one corner of the ceiling. He knew from exploration that the visible cameras were more for show than practicality. There were other, more advanced, security measures throughout the building, including alarms both silent and ear-piercing.

“If it’s a heist they’ve managed not to trip any sirens at all,” Richard said doubtfully. “Pretty unlikely, don’t you think?”

“Fantastic,” Winter said, gray eyes gone wide with excitement. He plucked the champagne bottle from the floor and crooked it in his arm. “Come on, Richard. We’d better take a look.”

“Why? It’s not
sluagh
.
”
But Richard climbed to his feet because it was Winter’s birthday and they were all three busy pretending he didn’t miss his life before the Metro, so Richard figured if Winter wanted to waste time sticking his nose into someone else’s business as a distraction, he wouldn’t kick up a fuss. “Probably some loaded pop star getting a private tour. Happens sometimes.”

“Fantastic!”
Lolo squealed, mimicking Winter. “Hope it’s somebody ultra-famous. Hurry up, Richard. I want to
see.”

“This way,” Winter said, striding forward, following either his ears or his nose, Richard wasn’t sure.

They walked through the Rotunda with its red walls and dark floors. Winter paused briefly to swig from his bottle, then screwed up his face in disgust.

“I can hear them,” he said, tapping his head. The yellow gems in his ears winked, reminding Richard that his friend was, for all intents and purposes, deaf and yet open to the raw emotion behind every scarcely caught whispered word.

“Who?” Lolo bounced. The younger boy paid the priceless displays on the walls no attention; his excitement was all for the chase. “Where are they, Win?”

“Further down, West Court.” Winter abandoned his Moet again, setting it this time on a glossy black visitor’s chair. “Three—no, four. They don’t know we’re here. They’ve got one of the guards.”

“Got one of the guards?” Richard reached for Winter but his friend was already past, ghosting down through the West Sculpture Hall between bronze statues, Lolo trotting eagerly behind. Richard hurried after.

“What do you mean, they’ve got one of the guards?” He snagged Winter by the back of the affected black trench his friend wore even on summer evenings. Winter stopped and looked around, but only half his attention was in the hall; it was obvious he was listening to whatever disembodied voices he heard in his skull, and now Richard could hear faint, rhythmic whispers as well. “Is that singing? Someone’s singing?”

“Chanting!” Lolo bounced on his toes. “I think that’s chanting. Is that chanting? Win, what’re they doing? Oh, wait, I totally know! I read the signs! That room’s the
Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt!”

“Blood ritual, sacrificial magic,” Winter agreed, eyes narrowed to distant silver slits. “Happy Birthday to me. Some stupid human’s read too much Crowley and fancies himself a warlock. Richard, better phone Healy. They’ve already sliced up one guard and they’re not planning to stop until they let something nasty through.” He tugged out of Richard’s grasp. “I’ll distract ’em. Lolo, once I do, see what you can do for the victim. He’ll be the one bleeding out beneath the 2000-year-old bust of Horus.”

Feeling nauseated, Richard dug in his trousers for his phone. Detective Healy wouldn’t be surprised, but he wasn’t going to be pleased, either. For all he used Winter as a consult, the detective was never at his best when it came to the supernatural. For that matter, neither was Richard.

“They can’t really…” He swallowed and tried again. “I mean, with the blood ritual? It doesn’t really work, does it? That sort of thing?”

“Of course it does,” Winter tossed over his shoulder without inflection, “how do you think I managed to rip a Gate between worlds? It works a fucking treat if you’ve the stomach for it.”

“It works a fucking treat if you’ve the stomach for it,” Richard told Aine in a whisper, earning an angry roll of Water-Bearer’s glittering green eye. Richard giggled at the
sluagh’s
disgust because he’d had another dose of William’s lovely curative and it was more fun to laugh than to weep.

“I’ve the stomach for it,” Aine replied. She stood at his side. The sleeves of her shirt were mostly rags and tatters so she’d had no difficulty in tearing her left off, baring her arm to the buck knife she held in her right. “Or have you forgotten already?”

“Wait.” Richard shook his head. “Last time, you nearly died.” He scowled at Water-Bearer.

“Last time?” The
sluagh
had taken to pacing in front of the portal, wings twitching restlessly. Richard wondered if it was mentally rehearsing whatever magics it planned, a ghoulish Broadway diva before opening night, and had to suppress another giggle.

“Weren’t you there?” Aine sounded indignant. “Didn’t you see? I woke the Watchers, an entire set. Don’t you remember? Richard’s correct, I nearly died.”

“I won’t let you die,” Water-Bearer said, pausing in its restless oscillation to consider Aine. “If only because I’ll need you on hand to close the tear once we’re safely through.”

William stayed the changeling’s hand before she could slice an artery in temper.

“Impressive, I’m sure,” the wright soothed. “And lucky we are to have you. But Watchers are hungry things and Miach won’t need so much from your veins as that, especially when he’s tearing such a small hole, one no larger than the four of us need to pass through.”