CHAPTER 16
Fiona laughed when she saw it.
The gift had probably been meant to hang in front of a large window where light could shine through the myriad panes of colored glass and cast bright, vibrant pools of color around the room. Thank the stars the Others had been too smart for that. Instead, the two-by-three-foot piece hung inside a wooden cabinet in a small study on the second floor of Vircolac like some kind of guilty secret. The gilt frame around the monstrosity could easily have dated back to the days of the human king Louis XIV, but Fiona would have dated its origins to the Early Bad Taste period.
The edges of the glass disappeared into a rectangular wooden frame so ornately decorated, she almost expected it to tear the huge armoire down with its weight. Trailing vines twisted and clung, sprouting berries here and there like a hideous example of plant food gone wrong. Winged cherubs beamed maniacally down from each of the four corners, pudgy arms pulling back on intricately decorated bows. Their arrows pointed straight at anyone foolish enough to stand in front of the blinding gilded abomination. But worse than any of the sins of the frame was the image it surrounded.
Some evil artistic antigenius had used the same medium as the glorious rose window at Chartres to depict the stomach-churning image of Shakespearean fairies in midfrolic. Little winged creatures with faces like trolls and limbs like toothpicks gamboled around the edges of what looked like it was supposed to be a sylvan glade. A deformed and violently blue stream flowed across the foreground, and at the center of the scene a hideously blond fairy in a crown and a toga stood surrounded by the glowing nimbus usually reserved for human saints.
“Damn. One of you must have really pissed her off.”
“Yeah, we figured that out.” Tess guided Fiona until she stood right in the path of those little golden arrows about three feet from the surface of the blindingly bad artwork. “Actually, it reminds me that I wanted to ask you when Mab’s birthday is. I have this lovely macramé toilet paper cover I think she’d just adore.”
“There is a little charm she told us to use to make the glass active,” Rafe said. He and the others stood against the inner wall of the study, well out of sight—or maybe firing range—of the magical device. “I didn’t think you’d need it. You’ve probably done this sort of thing before, right?”
“I think I can figure it out.”
Fiona took a deep breath, focused her attention on the glass, and gritted her teeth. Not because of any nerves about her ability to communicate through her aunt’s gift to the Others, but because when Mab answered her call, she’d probably end up wishing she’d stopped along the way and picked up a full-body suit of Kevlar. Or maybe asbestos.
There had to be a museum in this city with a nice little set of steel-plate armor, right?
She twitched a little when Walker appeared just behind her and laid his large, warm hands on her shoulders.
“Need a little energy boost?” His breath tickled her ear and the solid, steady presence of him relaxed her enough that she could feel her muscles softening. That was good. It would help her absorb the impact of the coming blows. “The peanut gallery over there would get an eyeful, but it’s all for a good cause, right?”
Like she needed him to kiss her. Just the sound of his low, rumbling voice was enough to have sparks dancing along her skin. It made her remember how he sounded when he was naked beside her. Above her. Inside her.
She shivered.
“Is that a yes?”
“Thanks, mo fáell,” she said. He wasn’t really “her wolf,” but nerves made her grateful for his support. “But I think I can take it from here.”
He brushed her hair away from her neck and leaned down to press a kiss against the skin that still bore the mark left by his bite. She could almost imagine it heating at his touch. “Whatever you say, Princess. But if you need me, you just holler.”
He stepped back, and Fiona told herself to stop stalling. Delaying things wouldn’t make her aunt’s temper any easier to deal with.
Vicodin, on the other hand…
“Oh, bugger it.” Gritting her teeth and steeling her nerves, she looked directly into the chaotic jumble of colored glass and breathed the simple charm she’d known since childhood. “Rís e dhumh.”
Tell me.
For the space of a heartbeat, nothing happened, but Fiona felt the magic whisper out with her breath and curl and dance toward the glass. The magic seemed to make the individual panes ripple like the water in a pond giving way to a stone. The image in the frame began to pulse almost like a heartbeat, colors shifting and rearranging so the static image of the stained glass became almost like a movie with the characters performing the actions depicted.
She waited patiently for the magic to creep through the veil between the human world and Faerie. Time meant nothing to power. You couldn’t make it move faster, but in this case, Fiona felt it was moving fast enough. She braced herself for the image to focus and the face of her aunt to develop in the small magical window.
Mab never appeared.
Instead, Fiona watched as the shifting colors began to slow and settle into a new image, one that looked almost like the bright, glittering halls of her aunt’s palace. Fiona couldn’t make out anything specific, but she caught glimpses of archways and staircases and graceful, darting movements. She sensed rather than heard clear musical voices, light ringing laughter, and the hum of constant activity. Against her skin, she could almost feel the warmth of magical fires burning at a perfect, constant temperature in the huge open hearths and the breeze of wings stirring the air.
Drawing in a breath, she prepared to speak her aunt’s name, but the sound never made it out.
All at once, the colors of glass flared bright with a sickly putrid green light. The image writhed violently and darkened. A veil was drawn over it, dark and thick like sooty, smothering black coal smoke. Startled, Fiona took a step forward to get a better look and heard a sound like a gunshot in the quiet of the small study.
The glass cracked.
Really it shattered, splintering into thousands of tiny razor-sharp pieces and blasting outward from the wardrobe like shrapnel from a bomb. Another sound shook her, this one a low, ferocious roar as something large and angry tackled her from the side, knocking her off her feet and carrying her to the floor. Arms wrapped around her, Walker rolled her across the antique rug with astonishing speed, carrying her out of the path of the dangerous debris.
All around them, the room erupted into chaos. People shouted and swore and ducked out of the way of the tiny glass bullets. Graham shoved Missy down behind the sofa with Tess, who had been diving for cover almost before Fiona realized what was happening. With a roar, Rafe dodged to the side and threw himself forward, coming in low and to the side of the wardrobe and slamming the door shut against the volley of glass.
Fiona lay there, breathless and dizzy under Walker’s considerable bulk, and listened to the sound of glass thudding like buckshot into the wooden panels of the cabinet doors for several more seconds before everything went quiet.
Of course, it didn’t stay that way for long.
“What the high holy fuck was that all about?” Graham shouted, dragging Missy from the hiding place he’d put her in and wrapping her up in his arms. His glare should have had the armoire bursting into flames. “Someone could have been killed!”
“I think that was the point.” Tess stood up and leaned over to shake the sharp, sparkling dust out of her hair. She gave her mate a quick, hard hug when he covered the space between them with a single leap, his hands and eyes moving over her looking for injuries. “I’m fine, baby, but someone inside that picture seems to be feeling a little bit cranky.”
Fiona shifted and Walker finally eased off of her, at least far enough to sit on the floor and pull her into his lap.
“Are you okay?” he demanded.
His voice sounded even rougher and lower than usual and Fiona forced her lips into a smile. For the first time in a long, long time, she felt shaken, but her self-appointed bodyguard didn’t need to know how badly.
“I’m fine.”
“No. You’re not.” He swore and lifted his finger to brush the curve of her cheekbone. When he drew it away, she could see a drop of crimson blood glistening on the tip.
She reached up and touched the same spot. Now she could feel a slight sting, but until she’d seen the blood, she hadn’t even realized she’d been nicked by a piece of glass. “It’s nothing. Just a scratch.”
Walker growled something under his breath, but his eyes were warm and bright as he leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the tiny wound. She felt the tip of his tongue sneak out to soothe the minor hurt and tried to ignore when something inside her melted.
“I’m fine,” she repeated, trying to sound brisk and cool, but she couldn’t stop herself from reaching up and pushing a stray piece of his rumpled hair back away from his face.
The room was silent around them.
Missy broke the tension with a quiet and distinctly satisfied hum. “Well, that gave us a bit of excitement. I’m going to have to get one of the cleaning crew in here with thick-soled shoes and a vacuum cleaner.”
“I think we can worry about that later,” Graham said, frowning down at her. “First, I’d like someone to tell me what the hell just happened.”
“The same thing that happened when I tried to get back home through the gate in the park.” Fiona shifted in Walker’s lap and he set her aside, rising easily to his feet. She took his hand and let him pull her to hers. “The glass, like the gate, was cursed. Booby-trapped. Someone is going to a load of trouble to cut off the communication between us and Faerie.”
“No way.” Graham shook his head and scowled. “There’s no way anyone could have gotten inside this club and performed a curse without me or someone on my staff knowing about it. It’s impossible.”
“Maybe it wasn’t the glass that was cursed,” Fiona offered, only half-joking. “Maybe it was me.”
“Not to burst your bubble there,” Tess said, “but it could just be a coincidence that you were the one who activated it. The curse could have been placed before the mirror came to us and set to go off whenever it was used, or if it was ever used by someone with Fae blood. Or it could have been cursed remotely. You don’t need to see something or someone to put a curse on it. That’s why they call it magic.”
“But why do it in the first place?” Missy asked.
“I don’t know.” Fiona shrugged.
Rafe raised an eyebrow. “Would you care to speculate?”
She hesitated, then shook her head. “Not really. Touching the gate knocked me unconscious for a good couple of hours, and the glass could have slit my throat, if Walker hadn’t shoved me out of the way. This could start to give a girl a complex.”
No one laughed at her quip. Walker especially didn’t laugh. He bristled, hackles raised like the overprotective wolf he was. “Someone is trying to hurt you, and when I find out who it is, I’m going to very much enjoy ripping out his throat.”
“I appreciate the sentiment, but Tess makes sense. I’m not so sure I’m a specific target. I mean, who could have known I’d be the one using the glass? It could just as easily have been Rafael. More easily, since he’s used it before and I’m not actually supposed to be on this side of it.”
“Is there any way to find out?” Missy asked. She had to stand on her tiptoes and peer over her husband’s shoulder, since he clearly didn’t intend to let anything else get a clear shot at his mate. “I don’t know a lot about magic, but aren’t there ways to tell? Like with tracing the demon?”
“Different kind of spell,” Tess broke in. “Demons respond to certain physical signs and objects in a way that isn’t necessary for most other kinds of magic. Curses are designed not to leave traces.” She grinned. “I know a bit about curses.”
Fiona laughed. “Well, that could be helpful, because I don’t. At least not about ones that don’t last for a few hundred generations, and the one on the glass didn’t feel nearly old enough to be a geis.”
“No, it didn’t. It’s interesting, though, that it seemed timed to go off once you’d established a connection with Faerie, not at the moment you activated the mirror. It’s almost like it was doing double duty as a burglar alarm, set to go off when you made contact.”
“The ethereal branch of ADT?” Missy grinned.
“I wonder if it rings in a police station somewhere in Faerie.”
“Right. I can just see the Queen’s Guard donning their riot gear.” Fiona shook her head and laughed again. “Somehow that doesn’t strike me as likely. But I do want to know why someone is deliberately sabotaging the link between this world and Faerie.”
“I don’t get it, either. It’s not like we all spend a lot of time in powwows. I think that glass has been used a total of three times since Mab sent it to us, and all three of them were when she popped up in it to give us hell about something we did or didn’t do when one of your folk was visiting.”
Fiona wasn’t quite sure of the reason, either, but it gave her an uneasy feeling. She shrugged. “That I can’t tell you. But the explanation isn’t our biggest problem. If we can’t get access to Faerie, our choice of ways to identify and track down the demon just got a heck of a lot smaller. I think we’re going to have to start knocking on sorcerers’ doors.”
“I think that’s a piss-poor idea.” Walker scowled. “It’s too dangerous. Like you said before, that could just escalate the violence or drive him into hiding. And what if you bump into him and spook him? He could end up attacking you.” Walker shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest, his expression turning mulish. “No. It’s out of the question.”
Missy and Tess exchanged wide-eyed, knowing glances and fought with equal unsuccess to suppress their grins. They gave up the struggle when Fiona rounded on the werewolf, her spine straightening and regal authority draping over her like a mantle.
“I thought we already had this discussion, Tobias Walker.” It freaked her out a little to hear her aunt’s voice coming out of her mouth, but somehow she couldn’t seem to stop it. “We agreed that I am not some incompetent little fool. I make my own choices, and I am responsible for my own life.”
Walker’s eyes flashed bright with golden fire, but before he could open his mouth, Missy shot Tess a speaking glance and the witch hurried to defuse the tension. “I don’t think it’s really the best idea to just go door-to-door and ask every sorcerer you meet if he happens to be summoning demons and then setting them loose on the human populace of Manhattan,” she said. “First off, it could be dangerous, and second, it’s just inefficient. Let me ask a few very discreet questions of the Witches’ Council. Sorcerers are, after all, witches. Just a specialized kind of witch. I’ll find out who’s safest to approach and give you a couple of names. You can start there and hopefully not have to resort to the kamikaze approach.”
Fiona and Walker stared at each other for a long, silent moment before she pursed her lips and nodded regally. “I can accept that. I won’t be told what I can or can’t do, but I’m not so stubborn that I’m incapable of listening to reason.”
“Good, then it’s settled,” Rafe said, taking up his habitual role of peacemaker. Fiona recalled his mentioning something about how Graham had nearly been head of the Council of Others, and she shuddered at the thought. “Now, I suggest that we’ve all had enough excitement for the evening, what with the disturbing revelations and the bleeding and all.”
At the word “bleeding,” Walker’s gaze snapped back to Fiona’s face and locked on the reddened nick in her cheek. “You’re right. We’ve had enough for one night. Come on.” He grabbed Fiona by the hand and towed her toward the door. “We’re going to have a doctor take a look at that cut.”
Startled, Fiona dug her heels into the carpet and laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. I told you, it’s just a scratch.” She made a face at him and ran a fingertip along the scratch. It smoothed away, leaving nothing more than a freckle behind. “See?”
He continued to glare at her while their audience watched with obvious fascination. She felt her heart skip a beat before racing ahead on a burst of adrenaline. When he spoke, his voice sounded gruff and deep and so quiet she had to strain to hear it. “Let’s see if you can do that same trick on a bright red behind after I get through paddling your reckless little ass.”
Her jaw dropped with a nearly audible thud. “What did you just say to me?”
“You heard me.” Walker prowled forward while the other occupants in the room struggled to both blend into the woodwork and make sure they had a good view of the action. “You’re more in need of a good spanking than any woman I’ve ever met in my life. The agreement we made was before you got cut up by flying glass. In fact, it involved you understanding that I won’t stand by and watch you put yourself into dangerous situations, like chasing after sorcerers who might be trying to kill you!”
Fiona caught herself taking a step backward and stopped, squaring her shoulders. She did not make a habit of backing away from anything. “Our agreement was that you would give me credit for the ability to take care of myself and the brains not to put myself in clearly dangerous situations. I know you feel protective of me, Tobias, but just because you jumped me and got me naked doesn’t mean you own me.”
Someone made a choking sound, but Fiona wasn’t about to take her eyes off Walker to see who it was.
“I didn’t jump you.”
“Oh, really. What do you call it when you tackle me at the top of the stairs, rip my clothes off, and make my eyes roll back in my head, then? A relaxing little interlude?”
He growled long and low and took another step toward her. “I don’t remember you spending a lot of time fighting me off, Princess. You did a little jumping of your own after a while.”
“See?” Tess murmured to Missy at the other side of the room. “I told you they wouldn’t be able to keep their hands off each other.”
Fiona ignored their audience, too riled up now to care who watched them. “I don’t deny I did some jumping. I’m not ashamed to jump. Jumping is perfectly healthy and natural, and quite frankly, in Faerie most of us jump as often as we feel like it. But that’s not the point.”
“What’s the point, then?”
She managed a growl of her own. “The point is that you seem to have reverted back to the knee-jerk control-freak stance that we already fought about.”
“This is not a knee-jerk reaction, Princess. This is what happens when you volunteer yourself for combat duty without even discussing it with me first!”
One more step had the backs of her knees bumping up against the side of an ottoman. She swallowed a rush of nerves—or was that excitement?—and raised her chin to keep him from noticing. “Why should I discuss it with you? Do you think I shouldn’t try to help your friends and your community prevent a disaster while they try and negotiate for their survival among the humans? And here I thought I was doing you a favor.”
He swore.
“Besides which, I already told you that I won’t be treated as if I’m somehow your responsibility.” She was on a roll. “We agreed that I was capable of looking after myself, and I don’t see the need to ask your permission or your approval before I decide what needs to be done. Did you think I would just defer to you because of those idiotic protective instincts of yours? Get over them! I’m a princess. I don’t defer to anyone.”
He pinned her to the ottoman before she got the last snotty word out. She struggled, but even if she’d been fully magically charged, her strength couldn’t match an adult male Lupine with a chip on his shoulder and something to prove.
“I don’t care if you’re the fucking queen of the universe, sweetheart.” The golden flames of his eyes burned into hers, and his lips drew back in a fang-baring snarl. “I agreed not to treat you like you’re made of glass, but I did not agree to let you put yourself in some maniac’s line of fire, and you’re crazy if you ever thought I would. I’m not trying to smother you or run your life, but you’re my mate, and you’ll just have to learn to live with my idiotic protective instincts!”