War for the Oaks (38 page)

"What do you have to tell me?" Eddi asked, feeling small and grubby.

The queen picked up her cigarette and glided away to one of the arches. "Actually, the news is not just for you," she said, letting out a mouthful of smoke. "You, I believe, are the person most intimately concerned with it. I thought it would be wise to tell you first, and in private. But if you will pass it on to my opposite number in the Seelie Court, you would save me a great deal of trouble."

"I can't until you tell it to me," Eddi said, but without much force. She was under no illusions about the woman before her—this was the enemy. But the tower room was full of an emotionless peace, removed from the violence of hate or love, or the need for quick decisions. She didn't feel in any hurry to leave it.

She moved around the table to one of the railings and looked out at the night. A breeze, neither cool nor warm, lifted the hair off her forehead. The sky was a perfect black, ornamented with the white disk of a full moon and clouds of stars like spilled sugar. The treetops below were green-black, billowing like yards of satin until they reached a field of tall grass. It was quiet and relaxing, if a little lonely.

Lonely. The whole city of Minneapolis should have been visible from where she stood, a fierce constellation of lighted windows, streetlights, traffic. It should have paled the sky with its brilliance, excited her just with the sight of it.

"The view up here could put you to sleep," Eddi said, louder, quicker, sharper than necessary. "Don't you ever want something a little more exciting?"

The queen turned a measuring look on her. "I don't come here for excitement." The cool regard of those great, sloping eyes, the gentle satire of the arched brows, made Eddi wish she'd kept her mouth shut. She struggled against that wish.

"I bet you'd be happy if it really looked like this. The whole city gone, poof. What do you have against mortals? You look like us, you dress like us—why is that?" She was flinging words, any words, against the quiescence that threatened her. She scraped her fingernails on the stone railing just to feel the nasty sensation. If she could have smashed the peace of that room with the sound of an overdriven amp, she would have done it gladly. She pulled away from the railing with a jerk, stamped her feet to disturb the unnatural calm of the room.

The Dark Queen was laughing. "How should I dress, Eddi Mc-Candry?
Would you prefer this?" She glimmered all over, and was suddenly the wicked queen from Snow White, in a long black gown with trailing sleeves and a tight, helmetlike black hood. "Or this?" Black cocktail dress, bulky white fur, her hair half black and half white, cigarette holder between her fingers—Eddi recognized Cruella DeVil. "Or would you prefer the devil you know?" Severe chin-length hair, tortoiseshell glasses, a slate-colored jacket and skirt and a white blouse—she was the epitome of everything corporate and conservative. Then she was in gray and scarlet again, laughing, her head thrown back.

"Is there anything you do that you didn't steal from a movie?" Eddi said softly.

That stopped the laughter. The queen's head came down so quickly that her hair should have come loose, and there was close-held fury in her face. She turned away, back toward the night sky, and pulled at her cigarette. The silence went on for a long time.

Then the queen said, "I hold Willy Silver captive."

She said it as if it were the answer to a math problem—precisely and without emotion.

Eddi considered several responses. "Prove it," she said finally, but her voice was not strong.

"Why should I? Go look for him, and see if you can prove me a liar." The queen shook her head, and smiled. "Oh, why not—I fancy a dramatic gesture now and again." She reached into one of her sleeves and flipped whatever she'd taken from it across the table. It landed glittering on the carpet at Eddi's feet. She picked it up.

It swung from her fingers, catching the light from the lamps. The three interlaced crescent moons, in silver, dangling from a silver ear wire.

Eddi felt vaguely sick. "What do you want?"

"I want the victory at Como Park. A bloodless one."

"I . . . I can't do anything about that."

"No. But you can deliver my ransom terms to the Seelie queen. And you have such a stake, haven't you, in seeing that she accepts them?" Then she smiled, and what Eddi saw in her face made her more horrible than her gray long-toothed servants.

Cold blankness lapped at Eddi's thoughts. "Throw a whole battle to save one person—she won't do it. It would be stupid."

"Really? To save a young lord of the Sidhe? One of the White
Lady's own kin? Even in mortal history, a hundred common lives is a fair ransom for a prince. And the Sidhe are so few. . . . "

"What about the truce?" Eddi said, grasping at straws.

"It did not begin until sundown," the queen replied pleasantly.

But she'd seen Willy at sundown—no, she hadn't. When she'd left him in the rehearsal room, sundown had been an hour away. "What happens if they won't ransom him?"

"Then he is of no use to me," said the Dark Queen. For a moment, Eddi misunderstood that, but only for a moment. "You see, I've nothing to lose. If she will cede me the park, I'll return her kinsman gladly. If she will not, I'll kill him, and I will take the park from her by force of arms. Tell her she may have until an hour before the battle to contemplate the wisdom of buying him back. At that time I will meet her messenger in the Conservatory in Como Park, and we will make the exchange. But remind her of this: while she deliberates, he is in the loving care of my most trusted people. I'm sure she'll do the right thing. Aren't you?"

Eddi thought of the gray things; the redcaps; and the green, groping hand that had risen from the waters of Minnehaha Creek. She swallowed the bile in her throat and said, "I'll tell her."

"Go, then," said the Queen of Air and Darkness. And all the light went out.

Eddi's growing rage sustained her as she felt her way through the dark. She slipped and fell down four steps, and kept herself moving with the thought that the Dark Lady would laugh to see her. If she kept on, she would get out, she knew. After all, wasn't that what the bitch wanted, for her to get out and deliver her message?

Still, when she saw the vertical line of light that marked the edge of the door, she nearly cried. She pulled it open and stumbled through moonlight that seemed blinding by contrast, down the short flight of steps and into the phouka's arms.

He swept her away from the door, around the flank of the tower, and onto a park bench. Eddi looked up, out over the rooftops and the summer-clad trees to the blazing skyline of Minneapolis. It seemed the most valuable thing she'd ever seen.

She took a deep breath and got her voice back. "They've got Willy," she said, and the phouka's arms tightened convulsively around her. "I could
kill
her, goddammit!"

"Not easily," the phouka muttered. "What does she want?"

"Como Park," said Eddi, spitting the words.

He stared, transfixed. "Earth and Air. That's why she made no complaint over the date and place of the next battle."

"She's had this planned since then? Jesus Christ, I
will
kill her!"

"No, you won't. You'll come and tell the Lady."

And she did. Surrounded by the bizarre countenances of the Folk of the Seelie Court, in the quivering light of the bonfire, she faced their pale queen. She recited the terms like a sentry reporting during battle, terse and clear; then waited for the martial response.

The Lady did not move, or speak, or even blink. She only stared, not quite at Eddi. The fire crackled. Finally her lips parted. "We . . . will consider the matter," she whispered.

Eddi frowned. This was not what she'd expected. "She said Willy was a relative of yours."

"He is our cousin."

"Then don't you—"

"It is a great matter, Eddi McCandry—one of which you know nothing. Our response to this piece of treachery is not to be lightly decided."

That, at least, was anger. Eddi was heartened by it. "But in the meantime, he's in
her
hands."

The Lady turned her willow-green eyes on Eddi, as if seeing her for the first time. Then she looked at the assembled Court. "Enough. The revels are ended. Begone." She turned and walked away, and her courtiers followed.

Eddi felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned to find Carla at her side, Dan just behind her. "What do you want us to do?" Carla said.

Eddi scrubbed her hands over her face, trying to think. "Go home. Together. Don't go anywhere alone. I don't expect her to move on anybody else, but God knows we didn't expect this, did we?"

Carla shook her head and looked miserable. "No. Christ, Eddi, we can't just sit and wait for Her Majesty to figure out what the hell she wants to do!"

"Go home and stay by the phone. I'll take the phouka and see what we can find up at the practice space."

"We'll take your axe in the car," Dan said, his voice tight.

"Good. Thanks." Eddi wanted very much to cry. "You guys . . . you're worth any six of these characters," she said, jerking her head at the dispersing fey folk.

"Except for a few of 'em," Carla replied. Just as Eddi realized who she meant, she added, looking over Eddi's shoulder, "Don't let her do anything dumb, okay?"

"I'll try," the phouka said.

They half ran down the path to the motorcycle. As they reached it, Eddi heard thunder. The sky was clouding over. "Melodrama," she muttered, and kicked the bike alive.

It was not far to the building on Washington Avenue; the way Eddi drove then, it was closer still. When they arrived, the phouka grabbed her shoulders to keep her from flinging herself up the iron stairs.

"She would think it a splendid joke," he said, his voice tight, "to leave a surprise for anyone who came to search." He went up the stairs slowly, examining them as he went. Just short of the second landing, he crouched over one of the treads. Eddi heard his breath hiss out. He
held out his hands and muttered something. There was a blue-white flash, and he grabbed for the railing.

"Phouka!"

"It's all right."

"To hell with
it
, what about you?"

He smiled down at her. "Fine. Come up behind me, but slowly."

"What would that have done?" she asked as she climbed.

"I'm not precisely sure. The tread might have been slippery. It might even have broken entirely, and whoever was on it would have fallen. It's a piece of idle malice, something like the reverse of Hairy Meg's work." He continued to examine the stairs as they climbed, but found nothing more. Eddi unlocked the door at the top, and turned on the practice room lights.

There was so little out of place. Willy's russet-colored guitar lay face down on the floor. His amp was still on, and buzzed with the contact of the strings against the rug. A microphone stand was tipped over. One of the sheets that had hung from the overhead beams lay on the floor like a cast off shroud. A faint scorched smell clung to the air.

"Oh, God." For a moment she was stuck in place, looking at the guitar. Then she walked over and turned off the amp, and the silence became brutal. She picked up Willy's axe. It was undamaged, though the high E string was broken. She put it in its stand.

"They surprised him," the phouka said, in that contained voice. Eddi looked up and found him still standing against the closed door. "Not as thoroughly as they wanted to, I think, but if he'd had much warning, this place would be a shambles. Given the opportunity, he can be profoundly dangerous." He moved further into the room. "I think . . . yes, here." Eddi came numbly to look where he pointed.

On the brick wall, about a yard up from the floor, was a sooty black spot as big across as her palm. The scorched smell was much stronger. "He'd time for only one blast, and it missed," said the phouka.

"Willy did this?" Eddi stared, puzzled, at the black mark.

The phouka wore one of his unreadable expressions. "Yes." He crossed the room and stood for a moment over the sheet, then knelt beside the fallen mike stand. His hand went out for it, then pulled back.

"This—" he began, stopped, and closed his eyes. Eddi saw his jaw working. With a sudden, strangled noise, he slammed his fist against the floor.

She went to him and touched his hair. "What?"

His voice was controlled again when he said, "More than likely, they hit him with this."

The weighted iron base of the mike stand would have been an effective bludgeon.

"And he pulled the sheet down with him when he fell," the phouka added.

The base of the mike stand might even have broken the skin, to let out the smear of blood in one of the sheet's white folds. The phouka curled forward over his knees as if around a pain. He made no sound.

Eddi stared at the rust-colored mark for a long time. "I thought you said it was hard to draw immortal blood."

The phouka raised his head swiftly. "Eddi—"

"It requires the presence of a mortal bound to the cause, you said. Am I wrong?"

He looked at her with mingled dread and fascination. "I said once that you were a quick study."

"What happened here?"

He looked down at the sheet, and looked away. "There are . . . two mortals bound. One on each side. Ideally, they stand in . . . some relationship to each other. Kin, friends, lovers. If they are estranged, severed one from the other, that is best of all."

Eddi sat down on the floor and stared at him.

"I'm sorry. I'd hoped—" He passed a hand over his eyes. "I'd hoped there would be no need to tell you. And when I knew I should have told you, I feared to do it. I knew I'd made the Unseelie Court's choice inevitable. But I couldn't tell you. It was the one last thing I hadn't the courage to tell you."

"Stuart," Eddi said.

"He must have been present. But I doubt he struck a blow; he is as valuable to them as you to us. They would not have risked him against Willy."

She looked around the room without seeing it. What she saw instead was the balcony in First Avenue, and Stuart lunging at Willy, the flash of a knife as it fell from his hand and clattered across the floor. "From the first," she said, and her voice seemed to come from someone else, "I wanted to keep everyone else out of this. To keep anyone from being dragged in after me." She laughed weakly. "And from the first, it was a lost cause. Isn't that funny? I think it's funny."