I flexed my hand beneath the warm spray. It didn’t hurt. Well, aside from the brief stabbing pain I’d felt earlier when it shot up beneath my nails. The wraiths in the cemetery had been repelled by it.
What had the Hunter done to me that night so long ago?
I hadn’t seen any of the enormous winged beasts in our skies for years and I’d been watching, waiting. I had questions.
I’d found no reference to the Hunters in the abbey’s vast libraries. But then, I still had the lion’s share of the collections to wade through. It was slow going, sorting through the bits and pieces of my sidhe-seer heritage. I read for hours a day, sitting with those at the abbey who were scanning the ancient fragile scrolls and books to create an electronic library with cross-referencing tags that will never decompose. It should have been done long ago, but the prior headmistress of our order had been more inclined to let our secrets rot than share them.
I turned off the water, wrapped a towel around my body, and used a second one on my hair. As I toweled it dry and sorted through the damp tangle of long red curls, I turned my thoughts back to the problem of Shazam.
He’d been different lately, with fewer moments of lucid brilliance and more of emotional angst. I was worried about him. When he got back, we were going to have a long talk, and I wasn’t going anywhere until I figured out what to do to snap him out of his funk. If an emergency came up, he was going with me to take care of it. I should never have let him stay at home while I’d gone out patrolling the past few months. After nearly seven years together I knew being alone and unseen, as he’d been on Olean, was the worst thing for him.
I smoothed a light oil into my hair to keep it from going completely wild, grabbed my clothes off the counter, tugged on a pair of faded, ripped jeans and one of Dancer’s old, faded tee-shirts, a white one with HOLY SHIFT, LOOK AT THE ASYMPTOTE ON THAT MOTHERFUNCTION! emblazoned on the front. Wearing his clothes made me feel like a part of him was here with me, although I wasn’t sure he’d be particularly impressed with my life. Lately it positively brimmed with…routine. Epic adventures were a thing of the past, Fae battles forbidden.
Sighing, I retrieved the sword that I wasn’t allowed to use for its universe-given purpose from its perch within reach of the shower.
I love my sword. I pet it; it soothes me. Cold, hard, frequently bloody, we’re two of a kind. Made for war, but with a bit of work we shine right back up again. Double-edged, the straight blade swells in thickness and width as it nears the guard. The blade, apart from the hilt, is 34.5 inches long—most of the time. In battle, I’ve seen that length increase and decrease. Dancer was never able to identify what it’s made from but it’s oddly light yet weighty at the same time, razor-sharp, and has proved unbreakable.
Although the blade shimmers alabaster, the grip is fashioned from engraved lengths of ebony and ivory metals woven together. The guard is dark as midnight and resembles narrow wings that arc back toward my hand. The heavily engraved pommel is formed from the same obsidian metal as the guard and is always cold. Ornate dark symbols—a cipher that has never ceased to stump me despite the considerable time I’ve wasted over the years with pen and paper trying to work it out—flow the length of the blade on both sides. The symbols often move, swirling too rapidly for me to transcribe. When I fight, my sword burns incandescent, and I often find those undecipherable symbols seared into the flesh of our victims.
Most of all, it feels good in my hand. As if it was made just for me. And one day, I just know deep in my bones, I’ll get to use it again.
I padded out into the bedroom.
My fingers tightened on the hilt.
There was a man sitting on my bed.
Not Fae.
But considering he’d breached my many booby traps to gain entrance, there was no way he was human either.
I put a spell on you
“BY LOKI’S BALLS,” THE man said, shaking his head, “you’re not at all what I expected.”
Expectations limit your ability to perceive things. I try to have few. I leaned against the doorjamb, assessing him, sword deceptively at ease at my side.
He scanned me back, absorbing the bare feet, the holes in the knees of my jeans, the face void of makeup, the tumble of wet hair. His gaze hitched briefly on my left hand and his eyes flared infinitesimally then narrowed. “But you’re a mere child. How did something like you get your hands on the Faerie sword?”
On February twentieth of this year, my last birthday, I’d decided to commit to an age. As I was somewhere between twenty-one and twenty-three, I split the difference and settled on twenty-two. Casual and without makeup, I knew I looked several years younger. It worked for me; strangers often underestimated me.
I shrugged and said nothing.
“Well, hand it over and let’s be done with it,” he said, pushing up from the bed, hand outstretched, eyes fixed possessively on the softly glowing blade at my side. “Time is short, I’ve much to do.”
I laughed in spite of myself. He was shorter than me, with a lean build, wearing black jeans, boots, and a green shirt. Wavy raven hair swept back from a high forehead above a narrow face. His eyes were nearly as emerald as mine, with tiny amber flecks, and alight with amusement. I was the one holding the sword. As far as I could tell, he wasn’t carrying a single weapon. “I don’t think so.”
“We made a deal. You will honor it.”
“I made no deal with you.”
He spanned the distance between us in a sprightly leap, smiling broadly. “Oh, but you did.” He caught my hand in his and lifted it to his lips, kissed it then held it between us and glanced meaningfully at the cuts across my fingertips.
Right. He was wearing black and green, like his calling card. His hair was black and his eyes were green. What was with people? Wasn’t anyone normal anymore? Was having a color theme the new trend? “That was a cheat,” I said irritably. “You made the edges razor sharp and flung it at me.”
He cooed brightly, “And you caught it. There will be no welshing. You plucked it from the sky, offered me your blood, and made a wish. I granted it. You owe me.”
“I didn’t make a wish and you didn’t grant anything. And I didn’t offer you my blood. You took it. Through deceit.”
Green eyes danced with mischief. “I just love that part, don’t you? Blood is blood no matter how you obtain it.” His gaze shifted, swirling with menace and mockery.
“That’s a trap. You can’t sucker people into spells.”
He clasped his hands together beneath his chin and sneered, “Oh, please, as if your history isn’t positively mired in tales of stupid humans lured into unsavory deals and contracts. And their repercussions.” He snapped his fingers sharply beneath my nose. “Wake up, child. Pay attention. Fools fall. It’s what they do.”
I growled, “I’m neither a child nor a fool.”
“By my standards, you’re both. You didn’t have to catch it. I presented an opportunity. You took it. Pay up. The sword is mine.”
I said coolly, “I didn’t make a wish and you didn’t grant one. I’m not giving you the sword.”
He hopped with delight and did a fast, merry dance in a tight circle, as if pleased with himself beyond enduring. I half expected him to kick his heels together and break into a sprightly jig. Then he spun about to face me, applauding with gusto—clearly himself, not me. “That’s the very, very, very best part,” he gushed, eyes sparkling. “I did grant your wish. You just don’t know it yet.”
Not good. Which of the many half-formed desires that had sprung to my mind when I read his calling card had he chosen, and in just what convoluted manner would it be granted? History was full of genie-gone-wild tales and rabbit-paw stories. You never got what you asked for. You got a version of a wish as razor-edged as his calling card, something that would either harm me or benefit him, or both.
I s
till wasn’t giving him my sword. He was going to have to take it. If he could.
“Oh, I can,” he leered, leaning nearer until our faces were inches apart.
I went motionless, searching his eyes. Flinty eyes narrowed with cunning antiquity, something old and deadly lurked beneath his sprightly demeanor. I’d underestimated him. He employed prancing gaiety for the same reason I allowed people to think I was younger than I am. “Who are you?”
“A name for a name,” he cooed.
A small price to know my enemy. “Dani O’Malley.”
His eyes twinkled with mirth. “You may call me AOZ; that’s A-O-Z, and all capitals, by the way.”
“Gotcha, the A is silent,” I mocked. He’d pronounced it Ahhhs. “What are you?”
He laid a long finger to the side of his thin nose as if pondering what answer to offer. Finally he said, “Those who belong here.” His face shifted and changed, the bones sharpening, skin drawing taut and far too pale, eyes narrowing, all playfulness gone. I caught a sudden reek of soil, blood, and bones on his breath when he hissed, “Unlike the treacherous Faerie who think to take what is ours, not once but twice. Give me the sword, child, and do it now.”
The command affected my head, my limbs—similar to something Ryodan had once done, although he’d merely forced me to eat a candy bar when I was hungry, not give away my most prized possession—and I was horrified to feel my hand rising, preparing to hand him the hilt of my sword. Apparently, the spell agreed with him; we’d made a deal and I had to honor it. I was ensnared by his power.
“Stop!” an imperious voice thundered, and my hand froze, fingers locked on the hilt.
AOZ spun to face the intruder, hissing, “Get thee gone, Faerie!”
I blinked, startled. Inspector Jayne had just sifted in, joining us in my bedroom, and stood a dozen paces away, on the opposite side of my bed. He wrinkled his aquiline nose and said, “By the bloody saints, what is that smell, Dani?”
I shrugged, taking pains to avoid direct eye contact. Meeting the gaze of a Fae prince is never a wise thing to do. First your eyes bleed. If you hold their terrifying inhuman gaze too long, it’s said your mind will hemorrhage as well. I’ve never tested that theory. My brain is my finest weapon. “Don’t ask.” I hadn’t seen the inspector in years. Not since he’d undergone the transformation from human to Fae. I nearly hadn’t recognized him. The head of the old Garda, Dublin’s police force, had once been a rugged, barrel-chested Liam Neeson look-alike.
No more. He’d become a towering, otherworldly being with a stupefying gaze of opal-kissed skies threatening thunderstorms, hair the color of sunshine glinting off fast-running streams, and the lithe, beautifully muscled body of the Light Court. He smelled of fresh dew on morning petals, the crush of spring grass beneath my boots, the fertile, earthy promise of forest awakening from a long winter and raw, to-die-for sensual pleasure. All trace of rugged humanity was gone.
Mac hadn’t changed that way. Sure, her hair had lightened and lengthened, but she’d remained human, like us. I scanned him intently, found nothing to define him as having been born of our race. Inspector Jayne was Fae with finality.
I eased my sword down a notch, keeping it at the ready. Trusting no one in the room but myself.
As the inspector, Jayne had once taken it, leaving me in a trash-filled street, badly wounded, on the verge of bleeding out. Was I supposed to believe he’d now sifted in to prevent me from losing it? I narrowed my eyes and assessed AOZ. I’d drawn conclusions while we’d talked. Not Fae, not human, but magical, and smelling of earth, blood, and bones.
There was an old Earth god in my bedroom and he’d cast a spell on me.
And now there was a Fae prince in my bedroom, too, carefully muted at the moment, for which I was grateful. But who could say how long that would last?
AOZ despised Jayne and, apparently, the entire Fae race.
I said to AOZ’s back, “You want my sword so you can use it to kill Fae.”
He whirled on me, eyes narrowing to slits of green fire. “Better us than them. Give it to me now, you fool!”
In spite of myself, my hand arced upward.
“Dani, don’t,” Jayne murmured.
My hand dropped again.
I’d have nearly liked Jayne at that instant, if he hadn’t added in a voice of coercion, “You will give it to me instead.”
My hand went back up and my feet began a traitor’s walk toward him.
A puppet. I was their bloody puppet. It incensed me. Enough to want to stab them both with the weapon they coveted.
AOZ said coldly, gaze fixed hungrily on my sword, “My spell was first. Hand it to me now, child, or I will raze your motherfucking world.”
Torn between commands, my hand went still and I pondered its motionless state. Spell to my left, voice of power to my right. If they kept tugging at me, what might happen, not to me, but them? Especially if I added my left hand into the mix.
I eased black fingers around the hilt of the sword and laced my hands together.
Jayne’s gaze fixed on the subtle coupling then shot to my face, searchingly.
Still, he continued to work at my will, as did AOZ. I could feel ancient, inimical power rolling off them and knew, though neither was speaking, both were furtively attempting to bend my hand their way. Excruciating pressure escalated inside my head, so I tucked the bulk of my brain into one of my boxes and braced myself. I’d learned long ago how to distance myself from pain.
Two very different forms of power crept over my flesh, slithering under and around, seeking control: one brilliant and summery, one dark and earthy. Two arcane arts met on my hands, mingling perhaps with something of the Hunter’s ancient power, and mixed as badly as oil and water with an undercurrent of dynamite.
There was a swirling tornado of magic-gone-bad building, growing larger and more flawed with each passing moment, then abruptly power exploded from my hands and slammed back into them. Jayne roared and flinched. AOZ shrieked and clawed at his face.
Both turned to snarl at me.
I shrugged, flexing my fingers to make sure they were under my control again. “You shouldn’t try to take a woman’s sword.”
Jayne said sternly, “Dani, that weapon is far more dangerous than you know. Only a Fae can handle its power now.”
AOZ snorted. “Don’t listen to him. The Faerie seduce and lie.”
“But gods don’t?” I said derisively.
His eyes narrowed and he gave me an appraising look. “Perhaps not entirely a fool.”
“Neither yours nor his,” I warned.
Jayne said, “Dani, what happened to your hand?”
“Yes, what?” AOZ asked, eyes narrowing.
“No clue.” That was the truth. But I was done answering questions. I’d formed theories and I wanted answers. “Let me guess; the gods are back, awakened by the Song. Long ago you warred with the Fae. You’ve decided to start that war up again and, to do so, you need my sword.”
“Pretty much,” Jayne said flatly.
“And how long have you known this without bothering to tell any of us?” I fired at Jayne.
“Not very,” he said, bristling at my tone. “They returned weak and hid, biding time until they regained power. Only recently have they begun to show themselves.”
“We were weak because of what you did to us!” AOZ hissed at him then snarled at me, “We didn’t start the war. They did, turning your race against us. Once, your race prayed to us and we listened. We were good to you. Once.”
“Try to take my sword again, you’ll die.”
“I’m not the only one who will come seeking it. Others won’t be as generous as I. You don’t want him to come after it. You never want him to come. It won’t be only your sword he takes. Do yourself a favor and hand it over to me. You’ll be glad you did. If he comes
for you, you’ll discover the true meaning of Hell.”
I let my eyes go empty and cold. “I’m not afraid of Hell. I lived there once. And if I have to go back again, I’ll swagger through those gates with fire in my blood and war in my heart. And I’ll. Take. No. Prisoners.”
I meant it. I have little fear. I have a great deal of fury. Inequity, injustice, incites a slow burn inside me that consumes me with deference for neither self-injury nor casualties. I sometimes think I’m a hair trigger away from becoming something…else. A thing I don’t understand.
AOZ said sneeringly, “Good luck with that. His Hell is a place you can’t begin to imagine. Eternal. No escape.”
“Or,” I said with acid sweetness, “I could give my sword to Jayne and you could try to take it from a prince. But, oh, wait, if that were possible you would have taken it the last time your races warred. Seems to me, giving it to Jayne would pretty much shut the old gods down.”
“Yes, Dani,” Jayne said quietly, “it would.”
AOZ hissed, “You’re so certain you prefer the human race answer to the Faerie over us? We guided you. We didn’t turn our backs on you until you betrayed us.”
“I prefer the human race answer to no one but itself. We don’t need, or want, either of you. I’m standing here with two alien races, both vying for control over man—”
“We’re native to this world, not alien,” AOZ growled at the same time Jayne cut me off with, “That’s not true, Dani, and you know it. I once was human. I still hold the same hopes and fears for our race as you do, and adhere to the same priorities I once did.”
AOZ said derisively, “You’re Fae. You don’t feel and you don’t belong on our world.”
“This is our world,” I said coolly. “And as far as I’m concerned, neither of you belong here. And I don’t care if you were human once, Jayne. You’re not now.”
“Dani, I’ll take the sword to the queen,” Jayne said.
“For which I have only your word. No thanks. I’ll be keeping it. Or,” I fished, dying to see Mac again, “you could bring the queen to me and I’d consider handing it over.” Jayne was a mostly good man. With a fatal flaw. Well, two. One, he was a Fae prince now. Two, he’d not been able to resist taking my sword once before for the sake of the “common good.” Pretty much every phrase that begins with the word “common” instills unease in me. Common knowledge, common good, common welfare. Somehow, “common man” never seems to have much of a say in those “common” definitions. Politicians and kings make those decisions and it’s the “common” man who dies when kings go to war.