Cold Iron Page 23

  “Please,” she said. She was pale. Too pale. There was blood, too much blood. And no obvious wound. He had kept women, fathered children. He saw the discarded syringes and came to the only conclusion possible: they’d poisoned her and she had lost a child.

  He wasn’t certain what to do for her, how to stop the bleeding. Pressure, but where to apply it? Miach would know. He reached for the tarp. She shrank away from him.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he assured her.

  “Because I can command you?” she asked, her voice nothing but a reedy whisper, her body ravaged but her mind still sharp.

  “Yes. But also because Miach gave me leave not to kill you if you recovered the sword. You did well,” he said, trying to gentle his voice.

  A little smile from her. A mighty effort, because she was dying.

  “Please,” she said again. “I want Conn.”

  Conn passed into the room beside Miach. Frank Carter lay on the floor, his legs bent at impossible angles. His ragged sobs affronted the ears. There was a corpse beside him: Egan, Conn guessed.

  “I left this one for you to deal with,” Elada explained. “The other poisoned your woman.”

  Conn followed Elada’s gaze to where Miach already knelt beside Beth.

  So much blood. But she was still alive. “Conn.” Her voice was weak. Not the mighty thing she’d used to summon them there.

  “What did they do to her?”

  Miach ignored him. His fine-boned hands were on her, Conn’s woman. He knew the man was trying to help, but Beth jerked and whimpered, and he had to fight an urge to throw the sorcerer across the room.

  “Conn,” she said again. “I want Conn.”

  “He’s here,” Miach soothed. “Let her see that you’re here,” the sorcerer said, his eyes never leaving Beth, his hands working busily over her.

  “Will she live?” Conn asked.

  No one answered him.

  “Beth,” Miach said urgently. “Beth, look at me. You’ve lost a lot of blood, but you can make more. Do you understand how to do that?”

  “Thirsty,” she said. “Need,” she gasped. Conn saw her try to lift her hand, to touch Miach, but her movements were clumsy and slow.

  The sorcerer ripped open his shirt.

  “What are you doing?” Conn asked.

  “She’s lost a child, and she’s still bleeding. She needs to draw from me and make more blood if she’s to live.” Miach took her hand, placed it over his heart, pressed.

  She’d been with child, and miscarried. And he hadn’t even known. Conn watched Beth’s fingers twitch convulsively, a shudder travel down her arm. “Can you stop the bleeding?” Conn asked.

  Miach didn’t answer him. Instead, he addressed the woman lying on the ground, who was Conn’s love. “Beth, we have very little time. The Manhattan Fae will have heard you. They will be coming for you and the Summoner. I cannot give you any more of my power if we are to fight them. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  Conn didn’t. “What are you saying?”

  “There is too much damage. I can’t stop the bleeding. Nor can she. Her only chance is to use the power I have given her to make more blood until the hemorrhaging stops on its own. And I cannot give her enough to last indefinitely.”

  “No. There must be something else you can do.”

  “The Manhattan Fae will be here any minute. They outnumber us two to one. Even with the Summoner, you cannot fight them all on your own. I cannot spare any more power and be of use to you and Elada in the fight.”

  Miach paused, fixed his eyes on Conn. “If we fail to defeat them, if they take her in this weakened state, she will wish she had bled out here on the floor.”

  It was true, all of it, and no easier to bear for all that.

  “There are things that should be spoken between you,” Miach said gently, “in case there is no future opportunity.”

  Of course there were. Conn knelt at her side, stroked her face with the back of his hand, and tried to speak, but he could not find the words.

  She smiled and brushed her lips across his knuckles. “I release you,” she said. “I love you and I release you from your vow.”

  “You can’t,” he said.

  “I don’t want to die, but if I do, I don’t want you to follow me. So I release you. I can do that. That’s how it works. I know that now. I know so many, wondrous things, Conn; I want to tell you all of them.”

  “It will have to wait,” Elada said from his position at the window. “The New York Fae have arrived.”

  Beth knew the worst had happened. She had access to her power, but she was so weak and vulnerable. The Manhattan Fae could keep her that way and force her to their will.

  “They cannot find her like this,” the sorcerer said. “We must meet them before they reach this room.”

  She felt the Summoner vibrate when Conn grasped it. That was the magic binding him to the blade. She could see it as an aura all around him, a pale, shimmering light that danced over his broad shoulders and strong arms. The perfect warrior. She could see it now in the tensing muscles of his back: the speed, grace, and cunning that was Conn of the Hundred Battles. No wonder the Druids had chosen him to guard the sword.

  Then he turned to her, and she could see what it cost Conn, the man and the lover, to leave her here like this.

  “I promise not to die until you get back,” she said. It came out an unappealing croak, but he smiled at her anyway.

  “There are a half dozen Fae out there. You have great faith in my skills, Druid.”

  “Are you as good as everyone says?”

  He flashed her a smile. “Yes,” he said, and passed with Miach and Elada out of the room.

  She lay very still and listened. There was only the sound of Frank’s pitiful sobbing. She ignored it. He and Egan had killed her child, and he would have murdered her in cold blood. He didn’t deserve pity.

  She couldn’t hear through the echoing house like she had before. It took too much energy. Every ounce of strength she had was going into staying alive, replacing blood as she lost it, as far as that was possible. It was like bailing out an ocean liner with a teacup.

  And she could not make something out of nothing. Science had something to say on the subject, something about the conservation of matter and energy. She needed energy to make matter. Power to make blood. And she was running out of both. Miach’s gift would not last long enough to save her.

  She heard voices raised—the musical but harsh tone of the Fae—heard challenges issued. It was not a nice conversation. Then the ring of steel, and the electric sensation of power dispersed. That would be Miach. She could almost taste the sorcerer’s magic in the air, like mist after rain. She needed it, thirsted for it. Wished she could run outside and dance in it and catch drops of it on her tongue.

  She was going to die without it. The bleeding wasn’t stopping. She felt cold, and soon the chill would creep into her mind, and she would be unable to act. She needed to get outside. She could draw from the green growing things, the trees that brushed tantalizingly at the windows, the autumn grass she could smell outside in the air. Getting there might kill her, but she knew now that if she stayed here, she would be dead by the time Conn returned.

  There was an umbrella stand full of walking sticks by the room’s door. She rose painfully, grabbed one as she stumbled into the hall. She could not go out the front entrance, where the Fae warred with one another. She must find another exit. The library opened off a long corridor leading toward the end of the house buttressed by a stone terrace she had seen from outside.

  Blood trickled down her shaking legs as she walked, showering the rug in red droplets. One foot in front of the other. One step at a time. One hand on the wall above the paneling, the other clutching the silver knob at the top of the cane. She kept her eyes firmly on th
e furrowed carpet in front of her feet. If she looked up and saw the distance she must travel, she might not have the heart to go on.

  The hall grew brighter, and she felt, at last, the warmth of sunlight on her face. A glass door, heavy as lead. She pushed it open. It took all of her remaining strength. She fell to her knees and could not get up. From here she must crawl. The stone terrace was deep and cold, inlaid with colored marble and rimmed with balustrades of poured cement. She must reach the stairs.

  On hands and knees she inched forward, leaving a thick streak of blood in her wake.

  Her hands were numb, her vision blurring. Her fingers met silk. Pointed toes. Embroidered shoes. Gray peau de soie with silver wire. She had seen them before.

  She had been here before. On her hands and knees, looking up into the face of the Prince Consort.

  There were six Fae approaching the house. Two true champions, Conn decided, based on the swords on their backs and the animal grace with which they stalked up the drive. He recognized them vaguely, because at one time he had fought everyone worth fighting. For each of them, the occasion was likely more memorable—a contest that had grown more closely matched in retrospect, or a bitter loss to be avenged. For Conn it had been a day like any other, a diversion from the boredom of Court intrigues and petty pleasures.

  They were followed by three lesser warriors, unknown to him, but well-armed, and to judge by the way they carried themselves, well-trained.

  And with this war party came one Fae luminary: Donal. Conn seethed. Here was another Druid promise broken, that all those who had been witness to his daughter’s destruction should be forced into exile, confined in the Otherworld. Yet Donal was free. No doubt the Druids had counted him too useful to banish. Conn hoped he had suffered in the mounds.

  Donal was obviously the leader of the Manhattan Fae. The two champions flanked him; the other three Fae followed a little behind.

  “The odds are not in our favor,” Miach said, too quietly for the approaching Fae to hear. “We should try negotiation first.”

  “I will not negotiate with Donal,” Conn replied.

  “The past is past,” Miach advised. “Put it behind you. Nothing will bring your daughter back. We cannot be certain of victory here, and if we fail, Beth will die. Even if we prevail today, slaughtering these Fae will not secure her future safety. Extracting oaths of loyalty and protection will. Where Donal leads, others will follow.”

  He was right. Conn didn’t like it, but he was right.

  Donal stopped twenty feet short of them. Today he wore the fashions of an urban bohemian, block-printed silks and soft-fringed leathers trimmed with beads, but he had not changed in two thousand years. His eyes were still liquid brown, his hair a gold-shot chestnut. His finery offered a frayed counterpoint to his finely wrought beauty.

  “You have come a long way for nothing,” Miach said. “As you can see, the Summoner is no longer for sale.”

  Donal’s eyes darted to the blade in Conn’s hands. “I am disappointed, naturally,” he said, shrugging, as though the sword was of no consequence. “But not surprised. I have not the misplaced faith in my human get that you do, dear Miach.”

  It took Conn a second to make the connection. “Frank Carter shares your blood,” Conn stated. It was obvious now when he looked at him. Carter possessed only a shadow of Donal’s dark, slender beauty, but once you saw the similarities, they were unmistakable.

  “No more than a dram,” Donal replied. “And he has no awareness of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Which is as it should be.” Another pointed barb at Miach. “But he has been useful in the past, retrieving lost trinkets. Imagine my surprise when he offered to sell me the sword and I learned that it was not Carter, but his ex-wife, who was such a talented antiquities hunter. If I had known that all of his finds came through her, I might have realized earlier that his Fae-sniffing bitch was a latent Druid.”

  Conn’s grip tightened on the Summoner.

  “Steady,” said Miach. “We’re not looking for a fight. The Druid belongs to Conn.”

  Donal laughed. His clear, cruel timbre conjured nasty memories of the Court. “But you’ve always been a Druid lover, haven’t you, Betrayer? Tell me, what does it feel like to bury your cock in a two-faced whore?”

  “How would he know?” Elada called back. “He hasn’t fucked your mother.”

  Donal snarled, his beautiful face contorting into a grotesque mask as he drew the glittering sword slung across his back.

  “Are we still negotiating?” Conn asked, raising his own weapon.

  “No. I believe Elada just wrapped up negotiations.”

  “You take the three at the back,” Conn said. He raised the Summoner and moved toward Donal. The Fae champions on either side of their leader advanced to flank him. Three against one. A classic attack.

  First the Fae on his right made a draw-cut feint with his sword. Conn ignored him, lunged hard left at the warrior who hoped to skewer him through the back, and thrust his sword into that Fae’s belly. Then with a single fluid motion he slid the blade free to drive the hilt of the two-handed weapon back into the other Fae’s skull.

  Leaving Donal an opening. A quick strike, a glancing blow off Conn’s ribs. Painful, but not crippling. Taking out the two flanking Fae had been worth it. Now he could close and focus on Donal.

  It was not a fair fight. Real fights seldom were. And the Summoner always redefined the terms of single combat. Untreated wounds from the blade killed, and only a fool counted on being able to find a sorcerer willing and able to heal them. So Donal was forced to fight defensively. He could risk no attack that required him to lower his guard.

  If this were an exhibition fight, or a duel in front of the Court, Conn would be obliged to make allowances, to follow rules that handicapped him in the same way. He’d have picked another blade. He was under no such obligation here. Today he fought solely to kill.

  To do that he must lure Donal close. Allow the Fae to bloody him a little. That part was easy enough. He endured another glancing blow across the ribs, a cut to his shoulder blades, and then, when Donal came too close for a third attack, he struck.

  He’d intended a killing blow, but Donal spun too quickly, and Conn only hamstrung him. Donal went down. Conn kicked his sword out of his grasp, brought the Summoner’s tip to Donal’s throat, then wavered. His daughter had not died quickly. Why should Donal?

  “Enough,” Miach said. Conn hadn’t heard him approach. He knew that the other Fae must be defeated if Miach stood beside him, but he could hear and see nothing through his rage, undimmed after two thousand years.

  “Kill him or bind him to you, but don’t torture him. We don’t have the time. Think of Beth.”

  “Was it not enough for you, Betrayer, to damn us all once?” Donal spat. “Over some slut you sired on another slut?”

  “It will never be enough. Never,” Conn said.

  “His oath is worth more than his life.” Miach’s measured voice cut through Conn’s red haze. “Think about Beth’s safety,” he urged. “She has trumpeted her existence to the world. Every Fae sword will be turned against her. She needs allies. Donal can be one. Can’t you, Donal?”

  Donal licked his thin lips. “I’ll honor her as I would any woman belonging to the Betrayer.”

  “This is not a time for artifice and doublespeak,” Miach chided. “You are not bargaining with humans. You are bargaining with Conn of the Hundred Battles. For your life.”

  Donal sputtered in disgust. “I shall be the Druid’s ally,” he said sullenly.

  “Not good enough,” Conn said. Beth’s power, her growing control over the gaesa her ancestors had left woven into Fae flesh, was not without limits. Once located, she could be taken in her sleep or unaware, or dealt with by half-breed or mortal agents.

  And plans to locate and deal with her would soon be set in motion. To live and serve at the
whim of a Druid again was intolerable—Beth’s very existence, an affront to any Fae who valued his own life and liberty.

  “Swear,” Conn instructed, “that you will never attempt to harm the Druid, Beth, who is Conn’s woman. That you will not plot against her, and that you will defend her from others who do so, even at the cost of your own life.”

  Donal, with no other choice but poor grace, swore. Miach countered the magic of the Summoner’s wounds. And it was over.

  Conn turned toward the house. He knew better than to pass while he was bleeding. He suspected their surviving Fae attackers would also be too weak to pass. But he didn’t care how they left, so long as they left.

  Miach ran after him. “Your ribs,” he said, offering his hand.

  Conn shook his head. “Save your strength for Beth.”

  “It is a small thing, and then you can pass to her,” he said.

  Conn stopped and allowed the sorcerer to place hands on him. He felt a moment of warmth and comfort, then a short sharp pain. “Sorry,” Miach said. “One of your ribs was broken.”

  And now it was healed, and the wounds gone. Conn passed into the library.

  Beth was not there. He quickly searched the bloodstained blankets, as though somehow she could be hiding in the tangle. Then he followed the trail of blood.

  The library carpet was patterned in droplets, dark red against Persian ochre, in a patch leading to the door. A bloody handprint marked the panels, and the knob was slick with blood.

  In the hall the trail alternated between splotches of red sunk deep into the dingy gray rug and smears of drying brown on the green walls above the wainscoting. His heart hammering, Conn followed. Drop, drop, drop. Smear, smear, smear. Beth, Beth, Beth.

  The hall led to a door: heavy, glass, and also streaked with blood. Beyond was a terrace: stone, damp, and wide, overlooking the rolling lawns. The gory trail led across it, one long zigzag streak, as though she had crawled the last several yards to the edge of the stairs.

  There it ended in a bright red puddle. Lying in the center of that crimson stain, moon pale and glimmering with Fae magic, was a scattering of silver, leaf-shaped beads.