Part I Part 115 (1/2)

I nodded. ”Yeah. Dried out the blood, made it useless for whatever she wanted.” I shoveled down some more food. ”Then last night I got jumped by a hired gun and a couple of faerie beasties.” I gave her the summary of the attack at Wal-Mart, leaving Murphy out of it.

”Maeve,” Elaine said.

”It's about all I've got,” I said. ”It doesn't fit her very well, but-”

”Of course it fits her,” Elaine said absently. ”Don't tell me you fell for that psychotic dilettante nymphomaniac act she put on.”

I blinked and then said through a mouthful of French toast, ”No. 'Course not.”

”She's smart, Harry. She's playing on your expectations.”

I chewed the next bite more slowly. ”It's a good theory. But that's all it is. We need to know more.”

Elaine frowned at me. ”You mean you want to talk to the Mothers.”

I nodded. ”I figure they might let a few things slip about how things work. But I don't know how to get there. I thought you might be able to ask someone in Summer.”

She closed her paperback. ”No.”

”No, they won't help?”

”No, I'm not going to see the Mothers. Harry, it's insane. They're too strong. They could kill you-worse than kill you-with a stray thought.”

”At this point I'm already in over my head. It doesn't matter how deep the water gets from here.” I grimaced. ”Besides, I don't really have a choice.”

”You're wrong,” she said with quiet emphasis. ”You don't have to stay here. You don't have to play their game. Leave.”

”Like you are?”

”Like I am,” Elaine said. ”You can't stop what's been set in motion, Harry, but you can kill yourself trying. It's probably what Mab wanted to begin with.”

”No. I can stop it.”

She gave me a small smile. ”Because you're in the right? Harry, it doesn't work like that.”

”Don't I know it. But that's not why I think so.”

”Then why?”

”You don't try to kill someone who isn't a threat to you. They took shots at both of us. They must think we can stop them.”

”They, them,” Elaine said. ”Even if we are close, we don't know who 'they' is.”

”That's why we talk to the Mothers,” I told her. ”They're the strongest of the Queens. They know the most. If we're smart, and lucky, we can get information from them.”

Elaine reached up to tug at her braid, her expression uncertain. ”Harry, look. I'm not... I don't want to...” She closed her eyes for a moment and then said in a voice, pained, ”Please, don't ask me to do this.”

”You don't have to go,” I said. ”Just find me the way to them. Just try.”

”You don't understand the kind of trouble you're asking for,” she said.

I looked down at my empty plate and said quietly, ”Yeah. I do. I hate it, Elaine, and I'm afraid, and I must be half insane not to just dig myself a hole and pull it in after me. But I understand.” I reached across the table and put my hand over hers. Her skin was soft, warm, and she s.h.i.+vered at the touch. ”Please.”

Her hand turned up, fingers curling briefly against mine. My turn to s.h.i.+ver. Elaine sighed. ”You're an imbecile, Harry. You're such a fool.”

”I guess some things don't change.”

She let out a subdued laugh before withdrawing her hand and standing. ”I've got a favor left to me. I'll call it in. Wait here.”

Five minutes later, she was back. ”All right. Outside.”

I stood. ”Thank you, Elaine. You going to make your plane?”

She opened her purse and tossed the airline tickets onto the table along with a pair of twenties. ”I guess not.” Then she took a couple of other items out of the purse: a slave-ring of ivory carved in the shape of a ring of oak leaves and attached to a similar bracelet by a silver chain. An earring fas.h.i.+oned of what might have been copper and a teardrop-shaped black stone. Then an anklet dangling with bangles shaped like bird wings. She put them all on, then looked at my gym bag. ”Still going with the phallic foci, eh? Staff and rod?”

”They make me feel all manly.”

Her mouth twitched, and she started for the exit. I followed her and found myself opening doors for her out of habit. She didn't seem to be too horribly upset by it.

Outside, cars pulled up into a circle drive at the front of the hotel, airport shuttles disgorging and swallowing travelers, taxis picking up men and women in business suits. Elaine slipped the strap of her purse over her good shoulder and stood there quietly.

Maybe thirty seconds later, I heard the clopping of hooves on blacktop. A carriage rolled into sight, drawn by a pair of horses. One of them was the blue-white color of a drowned corpse, and its breath steamed in the air. The other was gra.s.s-green, its mane sown with wildflowers. The carriage itself looked like something from Victorian London, all dark wood and bra.s.s filigree-and no one was driving it. The horses came to a halt directly before us and stood there, stamping their feet and tossing their manes. The door to the carriage swung open in silence. No one was inside.

I took a surrept.i.tious look around me. None of the straights seemed to have noticed the carriage or the unworldly horses pulling it. A taxi heading for the s.p.a.ce the carriage occupied abruptly veered to one side and found another spot. I made an effort and could sense the whisper of enchantment around the carriage, subtle and strong, probably encouraging the straights not to notice it.

”I guess this is our ride,” I said.

”You think?” Elaine flipped her braid back over one shoulder and climbed in. ”This will take us there, but we won't have any protection on the other side. Just remember, Harry, I told you this was a bad idea.”

”Preemptive I-told-you-sos,” I said. ”Now I've seen everything.”

Chapter Twenty-five [image]

The carriage took off so smoothly that I almost didn't feel it. I leaned over the window and twitched the shade aside. We pulled away from the hotel and into traffic with no one the wiser, cars giving us a wide berth even while not noting us. That was one h.e.l.l of a veil. The carriage didn't jounce at all, and after about a minute wisps of mist began to brush up against the windows. Not long after, the mists blocked out the view of the city entirely. The street sounds faded, and all that was left was silver-grey mist and the clop of horse hooves.

The carriage stopped perhaps five minutes later, and the door swung open. I opened my gym bag and took out my rod and staff. I slipped the sword cane through my belt and drew out my amulet to lie openly on my chest. Elaine did the same with hers. Then we got out of the carriage.

I took a slow look at my surroundings. We stood on some kind of spongy gra.s.s, on a low, rolling hill surrounded by other low, rolling hills. The mist lay over the land like a crippled storm cloud, sluggish and thick in some places, thinner in others. The landscape was dotted with the occasional tree, boles thick and twisted, branches scrawny and long. A tattered-looking raven crouched on a nearby branch, its bead-black eyes gleaming.

”Cheery,” Elaine said.

”Yeah. Very Baskerville.” The carriage started up again, and I looked back to see it vanis.h.i.+ng into the mist. ”Okay. Where to now?”

At my words the raven let out a croaking caw. It shook itself, bits of moldy feather drifting down, and then beat its wings a few times and settled on another branch, almost out of sight.

”Harry,” Elaine said.

”Yeah?”