Ironside

"Hair longer than mine," Kaye said.



"I bet he takes longer to get ready, too.”



"Hey!" Kaye punched him on the arm. "I get ready fast.”



"I'm just saying." Corny grinned. "You know, though, dating supernatural creatures is never easy. Admittedly, being supernatural yourself should make it easier.”



Across the room, a group of three men looked up from their cappuccinos. One said something and the other two snickered.



"You're freaking them out," Kaye whispered.



"They just think we're plotting out a really bizarre book," Corny said. "Or roleplaying. We could be LARPing, you know." He crossed his arms over his chest. "Now I'm obfuscating, and you have to pay for my dinner.”



Kaye caught the eye of a girl hunched over a table. The tips of her stringy hair trailed in her coffee and she was bundled in a series of coats, one layered over another, until it seemed like her back was hunched. When the girl saw Kaye looking, she held up a slip of paper between two fingers and slipped it into a drawer in front of her. Then, with a wink, she slugged back the last of her coffee and got up to leave.



"Hold on," Kaye said to Corny, rising and crossing to the table. The girl was gone, but when Kaye opened the cabinet, the paper was still there: The Queen wants to see you. The Fixer knows the way. Page him: 555-1327.



Corny and Kaye walked over to the club just as it started to snow again. The building had a brick front, papered over with posters in tattered layers worn by rain and dirt. Corny didn't recognize any of the bands.



At the front door, a woman in black jeans and a zebra-print coat took the five-dollar cover charge from a short line of shivering patrons.



"ID," the woman said, tossing back tiny braids.



"My mom's playing," Kaye said. "We're on the list.”



"I still need to see ID," said the woman.



Kaye stared, and the air around them seemed to ripple, as if with heat. "Go right in," the woman said dreamily.



Corny stuck out his hand to be stamped with a sticky blue skull and walked toward the door. His heart thundered against his chest.



"What did you do to her?" he asked.



"I love this smell," Kaye said, smiling. He wasn't sure if she hadn't heard his question or if she'd just decided not to answer it.



"You have got to be kidding." The inside of the club was painted flat black. Even the piping high above their heads had been sprayed the same matte tone so that all the light in the room seemed to be absorbed by the walls. A few multicolor lights strobed over the bar and across the stage, where a band wailed.



Kaye shouted over the music. "No, really. I love it. Stale beer and cigarette residue and sweat. It burns my throat, but after the car and the subway ride, I barely care.”



"That's great," he shouted back. "Do you want to say hi to your mom?”



"I better not." Kaye rolled her eyes. "She's a bitch when she's getting ready. Stage fright.”



"Okay, let's grab a seat," Corny said, weaving his way toward one of the tiny tables lit with a red electric votive that looked like a bug light.



Kaye went to get drinks. Corny sat and observed the crowd. An Asian boy with a shaved head and fringed suede chaps gestured to a girl in a knitted wool dress and tarantula-print cowboy boots. Nearby, a woman in a moiré coat slow danced with another woman up against a black support pole. Corny felt a wild surge of excitement fill him. This was a real New York club, an actual cool place to which he should have been forbidden according to the rules of nerd-dom.



Kaye came back to the table as the other band cleared off the stage and Ellen, Trent, and the other two members of Treacherous Iota strode on.



Moments later, Kaye's mother was bent over, raking the strings of her guitar. Kaye watched in rapt fascination, the pools of her eyes wet as she chewed on a plastic stirrer.



The music was okay—candy punk with some messed-up lyrics. Kaye's mom didn't look like the faded middle-aged woman Corny had seen a couple of hours ago, though. This Ellen looked fierce, like she might lean out and eat up all of the little girls and boys gathered around the stage. Even though it made no sense, as she screeched through the first song, Corny thought he could see a lot of Kaye in her.



Watching her transformation made him uncomfortable, especially because his fingers were still stained with black dye from his own. He looked around the room.



His gaze ran over the beautiful boys and the insect-slender girls, but it stopped on a tall man leaning against the far wall, a messenger bag slung over his shoulders. Just looking at him made gooseflesh bloom on Corny's arms. His features were far too perfect to belong to a human.



Looking at that stiff, arrogant posture, Corny thought it was a glamoured Roiben come to beg Kaye's indulgence. But the hair was the color of butter, not salt, and the tilt of the jaw was not like Roiben's at all.



The man stared at Kaye, so fixedly that when a girl in pigtails stopped in front of him, he moved to the left to continue watching.



Corny stood up without really meaning to. "Be right back," he said to Kaye's questioning look.



Now that he was walking in the man's direction, Corny was no longer sure what to do. His heart beat against his rib cage like a ricocheting rubber ball until he thought he might choke. Still, as he got closer, more details added to Corny's suspicions. The man's jaw was as hairless as a girl's. His eyes were the color of bluebells. He was the most poorly disguised faery Corny had ever seen.



Onstage, Ellen bellowed into the mike, and the drummer went into a solo.



"You're doing a crap-ass job of blending in, you know that?" Corny shouted over the rhythmic pounding.



The faery narrowed his eyes. Corny looked down at his borrowed sneakers, suddenly remembering that he could be charmed.



"Whatever do you mean?" The man's voice was soft. It showed none of the anger that had been in his face.



Corny ground his teeth together, ignoring his longing to look into those lovely eyes again. "You don't look human. You don't even talk human.”



A smooth, warm hand touched Corny's cheek, and Corny jumped. "I feel human," the faery man said.



Without meaning to, Corny leaned into the touch. Desire flared in him, so sharp it was almost pain. But as his eyes drifted closed, he saw his sister's face disappearing under briny water, saw her screaming great gulps of sea as a beautiful kelpie-turned-boy dragged her down. He saw himself crawling through the dirt to bring a pulpy fruit to drop at a laughing faerie knight's feet.



His eyes snapped open. He was so furious his hands shook. "Don't flirt," Corny said. He wasn't going to be weak again. He could do this.



The faery watched him with arched eyebrows and a smile filled with mockery.



"I'll bet you want Kaye," Corny said. "I can get her for you.”



The faery frowned. "And you would betray another of your kind so easily?”



"You know she's not my kind." Corny took him by the elbow. "Come on. She might see us. We can talk in the bathroom.”



"I beg your pardon.”



"Keep begging," Corny said, grabbing the faery's arm and leading him through the crowd. A glance back told him that Kaye was preoccupied with the performance onstage. Adrenaline flooded him, narrowing his focus, making rage and desire seem suddenly indistinguishable. He swept into the bathroom. The single stall and two urinals were empty. On a dark purple wall, beside a hand-lettered sign promising decapitation to employees failing to wash their hands, hung a shelf piled with toilet paper and cleaning supplies.



An utterly unpleasant idea occurred to Corny. He had to fight not to smile.



"The thing is," he said, "that's not how human guys dress at all. It's not sloppy enough. Roiben always makes the same mistake.”



The fey man's lip curled slightly, and Corny tried to keep his face blank, as though he had missed that rather interesting tell.



"Look at yourself. Fix your glamour so that you look more like you're wearing what I'm wearing, okay?”



The faery looked Corny over. "Repugnant," he said, but unshouldered his messenger bag, leaning it against the wall.



Corny grabbed the can of Raid off the shelf. If Kaye couldn't even have a cigarette anymore, the effects of a concentrated insect poison should be impressive. He didn't need to speculate long. As the faery turned, Corny sprayed him full in the face.



The blond choked and fell immediately to his knees, glamour dropping from him, revealing dreadful, inhuman beauty. Corny reveled for a moment in the look of him convulsing on the filthy floor, then he pulled the lace out of his sneaker and used it to tie the creature's hands behind its back.



The faery squirmed as the knots went tight, trying to twist away as he coughed. Corny scrambled for the can and hit the faery with it as hard as he could.



"I swear to fucking God, I will spray you again,” Corny said. "Enough of this shit will kill you.”



The faery went still. Corny stood up, straddling the faery's body, fingering the nozzle on the Raid can. He caught his own gaze in the mirror, saw his short dyed dark hair and his borrowed clothes, how pathetic they were. They didn't make his skin any less spotty or his nose smaller or him any less ugly.



Thin, strong fingers wound around Corny's calves, but Corny pressed the sole of his sneaker against the faery's neck and squatted down over him. "Now you're going to tell me a whole bunch of things I've always wanted to know.”



The creature swallowed.



"Your name," Corny said.



The blue eyes flashed. "Never.”



Corny shrugged and slid his foot off of the faery, suddenly uncomfortable. "Fine. Something I can call you, then. And not some stupid 'me myself’ bullshit. I read.”



"Adair.”



Corny paused, thinking of the paper in the drawer. "Are you the Fixer? Did you slip Kaye a note?”



The man looked puzzled, then shook his head. "He's a human, like you.”



"Okay. Adair, if you're not the Fixer, what do you want with Kaye?”



The faery was silent for a long moment. Corny slammed the can into the side of the creature's head.



"Who told you to come here?”



Adair shrugged and Corny hit him again. Blood stained his mouth.



"Silarial," he gasped.



Corny nodded with satisfaction. He was breathing hard, but each breath came out like a laugh. "Why?”



"The pixie. I'm to take her to the Seelie Court. Many of my Lady's subjects are seeking her out.”



Corny sat down on Adair's stomach and fisted his hand in the golden hair. "Why?”



"Queen wants to talk. Just talk.”



A man with a fauxhawk opened the door, blanched, and then shut it with a slam. The faery twisted himself around, pushing upright.



"Tell me something else," Corny said. His clenched fingers shook. "Tell me how to protect—”



At that moment the bathroom door swung open again. This time it was Kaye. "Corny, they're—," she said, then seemed to focus on the scene in front of her. She blinked her eyes rapidly and coughed. “This is so not what I expected to see when I walked in here.”



"Silarial sent him," Corny said. "For you.”



"The bartender's calling the cops. We have to get out of here.”



"We can't let him go," Corny said.



"Corny, he's bleeding." Kaye coughed again. "What did you do? I feel like my lungs are on fire.”



Corny started to stand, to explain.



"I curse you." The faery rolled onto his side and spat a reddish gob of spittle onto Corny's cheek. It ran like a tear. "Let everything that your fingers touch wither.”



Corny staggered back, and as he did so, his hand brushed the wall. The paint under his fingers buckled and flaked. Stopping, he looked at his palm, the familiar lines and grooves and calluses seemed, suddenly, to form a new and horrible landscape.



"Come on!" Kaye grabbed him by the sleeve, steering him toward the door.



The metal of the knob tarnished at the stroke of his skin.



Chapter 5



Hell is oneself,



Hell is alone.



—T. S. Eliot



A faun with bloodstained claws sank into a low bow before Roiben's throne. They had come, each of his vassals, to boast of their usefulness, to tell him of their service to the crown, to win his favor and the promise of better tasks. Roiben looked out at the sea of them and had to fight down panic. He gripped the arms of his throne hard enough that the braided wood groaned.



"In your name," said the creature, "I have killed seven of my brethren and kept their hooves." He emptied out a sack with a clatter.



"Why?" Roiben asked before he thought better of it, his eye drawn to the jagged chopped bone of the ankles, the way the gore had dried black. The mortar that grooved the floor of the audience chamber was already discolored, but this gift freshened the ruddy stains.



The faun shrugged. Brambles snarled the fur of his legs. "It was a token that often pleased Lady Nicnevin. I sought only to ingratiate myself with you.”



Roiben closed his eyes tightly for a moment, then opened them again and took a deep breath, schooling himself to indifference. "Right. Excellent." He turned to the next creature.



A delicate fey boy with tar-black wings curtsied. "I am pleased to report," he said in a soft, shivery voice, "I have led nearly a dozen mortal children off of rooftops or to their deaths in marshes.”



"I see," Roiben said with exaggerated reasonableness. For a moment, he was afraid what he might do. He thought of Kaye and what she would think of this; he thought of her standing on her own roof in the T-shirt and underwear she wore to bed, swaying forward drowsily. "In my name? I think you amuse only yourself. Perhaps you could find something more vicious than children to torment now that the war has begun.”