Whiskey and Water (6 page)

Thomas' smile went tight.
"Rather."

"Unfortunately so?"

Something was following them. Thomas
hadn't noticed yet, but Whiskey could smell it, sweet brackish water and mud
rich with rot, the taint of methane and the sweetness of blood. Maybe all the
otherwise
world had come to New York for Samhain and the fat orange moon.

Or for feasting. Whiskey scented something
else. Blood—not the thin blood on Greenteeth's lips, but sweet blood spilled
hot and fresh. They were bumped and jostled, moving against the flow of
humanity now. The stallion drew himself up taller under the tilt of his white
hat and let the nails in his heels ring on the pavement. Mortals fell back like
the tide washing down the beach, without seeming to notice they had stepped
aside.

His fondness has served me well,"
Thomas said. His sigh went almost unnoticed as Whiskey leaned into the wind.
Mud on one side, blood on the other: a poet's grief was no more than a passing
concern. The scent of raw meat made his stomach rumble. "How do we find
the Maga, Jane Andraste?"

"I hope to catch her scent,"
Whiskey answered. Lights flashing blue and red down the block drew his attention.
The press of Thomas' cloak against his side was soothing. There were spells of
ward and guard wound into it, powerful enough even to ease the ache of all that
metal.

Something in his tension communicated
itself to the poet, who followed his gaze. Two men and a woman stood within
the radius of the lights, surrounded by uniformed peace officers.

Whiskey snorted and stopped, outside a
streetlamp puddle of light. The blond man, he knew. Thomas disengaged and
stepped aside as Whiskey melted against stone. It was foolish to hide; Matthew
would feel him in a moment if he hadn't already.

"And did you just?"

"Just?"

"Catch her scent?"

"Yes," Whiskey answered, as
Matthew turned, looking over his shoulder, a flash of bare patterned skin and
the glint of light off bullion. "After a manner of speaking, I did."

The Devil makes house calls. Often when
he's neither summoned nor desired; often when a debt is owed; often where he
has called before. Any two of three are as good as a guarantee that hell
venture the threshold, though he may not be well-recognized.

Fionnghuala the cursed, swanmay, princess,
sister of Manannan, daughter of Llyr, straightened from her oven. She had a
baking tray of ginger biscuits in her mitted hands, a smudge of golden syrup
drying itchy alongside her nose, and she turned to confront the rustle of
wings.

"Out of my kitchen, Nick," she
said, her hands too full to swat at him when he stole a cookie from the tray.

Lucifer ducked under the low beams of her
kitchen and smiled at her, wearing his most beautiful of guises. His coat was
gray velvet, tailed and worn over a snowy shirt and boot-cut jeans in indigo.
His boots had a heel, and blue eyes glittered mischief under the curve of his
golden brows. If she hadn't heard the wings, she never would have seen them,
pale glints of light in the shadows as they flicked closed and were gone.

:I understood I was invited,: he said, and
put the biscuit in his mouth.

He smelled of good tobacco and better
whiskey, a heady blend that mingled with the scents of spice and sugar. She
stepped forward and thrust the searing tray into his naked hands; he received
it gracefully, balancing it on an open palm. While she stripped off her mitts,
he took another biscuit.

:If thou hast asked me here to petition
for a job in Hell's kitchen,: he said, :thou hast it.: He reached a spatula off
the counter with his free hand and set about transferring biscuits to
cooling-racks, his rows very tidy although she would have thought the biscuits
still so warm they'd break.

"No," she said. She tossed her
mitts on the counter as he placed the tray atop the old bottled-gas stove, and
stretched past him to douse the oven. Her heart shuddered behind her ribs, the
pulse so fast her hands trembled like hummingbird wings. "I asked you here
to bargain. Come on, you, out of the kitchen before you curdle the milk."

Pale eyebrows lifted under the flickering
shadows crowning his curling locks. :Nuala,: he purred, and brushed her cheek
with the back of his hand, sweeping a thread of wire-gray hair from skin the
texture of parchment, soft and worn. She shivered and closed her eyes, to feel
the warmth as he enfolded her in his wings. :After all thy service, lass?
What's mine is thine for the asking.:

He leaned against the hot stove as if it
were nothing and ducked his head to kiss her, his breath like fading roses
across her mouth. She let his lips brush hers before she stepped out of his
grasp—but not out of reach—and smirked at his petulance. "What, got a
twisted wing, old Swan? Out of my kitchen, I said."

:Ever at the lady's bidding,: he said, and
followed her into the sitting room.

There were only two rooms in the cottage,
a thatched stone tumble on the bluff over a rocky strand. A slanted ladder led
to a dark loft over the warmth of the kitchen, where a bed made up neatly under
a patchwork eiderdown peered from the shadows.

Fionnghuala lit the lamps by a nine-paned
window overlooking the sea, then crouched to poke up the fire, adding another
brick of peat while Lucifer folded himself into the settle, one leg drawn up
and bent at an angle so he sat on his heel. She dusted her hands on a rag so
her apron stayed clean. "Tea or whiskey?"

He smiled, as he was often smiling, and
stretched his arms along the scrolled wooden back of Fionnghuala's tapestry
love seat. :I require only my lady's company.:

"Right," she said, and poured
whiskey for both of them before she sat on the chair beside, letting her
fingers brush his palm as she pressed the glass on him. He might sense her
fear, and her desperation. And he might admire her strength, for walking on.

He swirled the glass under his nose and
breathed in the fumes. The color was pale in the lamplight, more like brook
water than water rich with peat, and he inhaled deeply before flicking out a snake-forked
tongue to taste a drop. :No water?:

Silently, she passed him the decanter and
waited while he doctored the drink. "So measured in our vices," she
said, and watched him taste again. His hands were like the ivory sticks of a
fan. He sighed, and closed his eyes, relaxing into the embrace of the settle.
Fionnghuala, watching, felt an ache in her own vanished wings, and wondered if
even the Morningstar grew tired.

:So bargain,: he said, without opening his
eyes. :One swan to another. What dost thou want, Nuala, if it's not love or
money, or God's old Devil in thy bed?:

"Who says I don't want any of
that?"

One blue eye cracked open and his mouth
curved on one side. :Don't lie to the Devil, love.:

"I want Keith MacNeill," she
said, naming someone who had been as much foster-son as friend. "The Dragon
Prince, the Wolf of Scotland. I want him back from the teind."

:For thy very own? For a pet? For a toy?:

She sipped her drink, and shook her head.
The fire glowed warm along her thigh and hip, and she turned to absorb its
heat. The cottage was cozy, but the nights were raw. "For the world,"
she said, and waited. "For friendship. For himself and for his son. For my
nephew the sea."

:He went to pay a debt. As thou shouldst
know, my lady of the white shoulders. Where's thy swan-cloak now?:

"The debt is paid." She went and
perched beside him, turned sideways, one hip on the edge of the couch. He
straightened his leg to make room and cupped a warm wing around her shoulders,
rasping feathers through her wild gray hair. "How you dispense with the
payment is your choice, old Swan."

:Ah, and if I need him? I've a brother
devil or two brewing a renewed war with Heaven, Nuala. A Dragon Prince might be
just the thing, if it comes down to a fight. He might even slow Michael down a
little.: He raised his glass and toasted her, waiting until she clinked rim to
rim, and then turned it to cover with his mouth the place where her glass had
touched. She felt a cool shiver at the gesture, the touch of his wing, the
brush of his eyes.
He is the Devil,
she told herself.
He could tempt
the swan from her nest, the foam from the sea.

She tasted her drink, and waited to be
denied.

:And what dost offer in return?:

Her heart skipped in her chest. The
whiskey caught in her throat like a stone. "Old thief," she whispered.
"What is it that you want?"

:Love,: he said. And did the Devil ache?
Perhaps, or he counterfeited it well, a sad flicker of his mouth, a moist gleam
in his eye. He set his glass on the window ledge between the hurricane lamps
and leaned forward to kiss her mouth.

This time, she permitted it, permitted it
and kissed him back, the tapping of his tongue-tips like ribbons flicking in
the wind. The taste of the Scotch was warmer on his lips. "Not
my
love."
His mouth smiled on her own.

:No,: he admitted. :But thine will serve
today, little Swan, if mine will serve for thee. Art lonely, lady?: He knew she
was. He was the Devil, after all. But she pushed against his shoulder, and he
shifted back, and it was her turn to smile. "What of your renewed war with
Heaven?"

:I never said it was
my
war, lady:

And how audacious was it, for the Devil to
seek redemption? Courage, or the same hubris that had damned him in the first
place? Fionnghuala sighed, and found comfort in her religion: love the sinner;
hate the sin. "And if I win you your lover's heart, then?"
Old
serpent, old Swan.

:The wolf goes free. I vow it.:

There's no promise on earth to equal the
Devil's. She kissed him, to seal it, and barely noticed when he lowered her to
the knotted rag rug and plucked the glass out of her hand.

Across the water, she heard the black horse
neigh.

Jane Andraste watched the sun rise over
New York with a bone china cup of Jamaican coffee cradled between her hands.
She leaned over the granite wall of her penthouse balcony and breathed in
steam. The iron inlay was colder than the stone. The coffee cup was
uncomfortably warm, and the rings on Jane's fingers should have picked up that
warmth, concentrated and contained it. Iron is a notoriously poor conductor of
heat, but it retains it beautifully, and the heavy intricate filigree rings
she wore on both hands were base metal plated with platinum so they would not
irritate her skin. On her left wrist was a folksy toggle bracelet, peridot and
onyx with a marcasite clasp, and silver beads set with the glittering lead-black
iron sulfide. She slept in the bracelet, even now.

It looked a bit odd with her white
Egyptian-cotton robe and fuzzy slippers, but that was a widow's privilege, as
was her sleep-tousled hair and her lack of makeup. There had been a time when
she rose before dawn every morning to make up her face, first for a man and
then for the cameras.

Now she rose alone, and greeted the sun.

She had to live high up, in New York City,
to see it. She had a house near Albany, one with a sloping lawn over the river
that gave her sunrises almost in her lap. But it wasn't the same. She would
live out the end of her life here, in this city she had fought for and lost,
mourning the daughter she had also fought for and lost and the grandchild she
had never seen. Atop a high, lonely tower, as befitted an aging sorceress. Like
a pope without cardinals, like a king without barons, Jane Andraste was an
archmage with no adepts, only apprentices.

She would dream her dreams, and watch the
sun rise and watch the sun set, and prune her roses in their heavy stone planters,
and watch her protégé pretend he had not sold a whole world with his treachery.
Pretend he had not betrayed his brother's death, and his comrades, her Magi.

Or so she had believed. And so she had
intended.

And now her rings were cold on her fingers,
and the scent of blood hung heavy on the wind.

And Jane Andraste, who had half expected
to be the last Promethean archmage, watched the sun rise over New York City,
and knew a bright pale sort of hope as she smiled and contemplated war.

She turned away from the wall and the
sunrise, balancing her coffee cup on her palm, and headed for the shower.
Christian would be arriving soon with news, and she needed to be presentable.

Later, when the rising elevator chimed,
she greeted it with more coffee and the pastry that was delivered every
morning. Jane rarely left her tower now. The caution and dignity befitted an
archmage, and if a still, small voice sometimes whispered in her ear of
cowardice, wasn't everyone prone to self-doubt?

Christian still wore the turtleneck and
blazer she'd seen him in the night before, and he accepted the breakfast she
pressed on him with the appetite of the young. Matthew had eaten like that too,
and it delighted Jane to watch them. All that energy and vitality.

What did you find out?" she asked,
when Christian had consumed his second cup of coffee and was halfway through a
bear claw, frosting sticky on his fingertips.