Old Dog, New Tricks (11 page)

He sounded exactly like Mom when I was about to get a finger pricked at the doctor’s office.

“I can handle it.” Swallowing, I uncurled my fingers and braced myself. “I’m a big girl.” Sharp as his blade was, I still winced as faint pressure sliced open my index finger. “Freaking monkeys.”

Blood rose along the seam of the cut, but none fell. The cut crusted over as I began healing.

“I was afraid of this.” Mac sheathed his blade. “You heal almost as fast as I do.”

“How do you control your bleeding for spellwork?” I wondered.

A chuckle slipped from him. “I keep a never blade I confiscated in a cabinet in my office.”

Removing my left hand from his, I flexed the right, which was marked by my own never blade wound, and wished there was another way. I really didn’t want to bleed out. “Can you remove the enchantment?”

“I can.” He took my hand, palm up. “It’s an original spell of mine crafted for the same reason.”

“So you willingly cut yourself with a never blade often enough you had to figure this out, huh?” I watched as pink spilled onto his cheeks. “Yet you still can’t heal the wound. Isn’t that dangerous?”

“Unless another source of magic is introduced into our blood, interrupting our own, our gift mends us too quickly.” Mac’s expression turned pensive. “There are a few fae who have natural immunity to us. It was their blood used to spell the first never blades. It’s a necessary failsafe that must be broken once in a while in order for us to do any good with the gifts we have been given, but as in all things, we pay a price.”

Thinking back on the past year, I got an inkling. “Hobgoblins are immune, aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“Redcaps too.”

“Yes.” His head lifted, eyes softening. “They are.”

I was about to ask why he would let me go a few rounds with one of the rare fae who could hurt me, not to mention leaving him with plenty of my blood he could use as a focus object for dangerous spellwork later, but Mac pressed his palm to mine, and a pulse of searing pain dropped me to one knee.

Forget ripping off a bandage. This ripped off the top layer of my freaking skin, and I screamed.

Mac slapped a hand over my mouth until I could clamp my jaw shut and get it under control.

“The original spell grafts skin.” His voice thickened. “The counter spell removes it.”

So I was right about the reverse tearing off skin. Yay?

With a jerk of my chin, I signaled I could handle it.
Please, let me be able to handle this
.

Blood trickled from the neat cut, pooling in my palm until Mac fished a wad of cotton gauze out of his pack and pressed down hard. A flash of panic spiked my pulse. No matter how long he held it, the bleeding wouldn’t stop, which was kind of the point. And yet...
gulp
.

“Now what?” I took over for him, applying steady pressure like it mattered. “The control box?”

“Whether you jump a tether to the mortal realm or ride it to another location in Faerie, all tethers are anchored by a physical object to keep them stationary. Otherwise, they would drift. This location is pinned by the bridge. The control box is an amenity I added so that others could adjust their coordinates and travel more easily, but that is the limit of their power. To sever a tether, you must locate its anchor, and then you must counteract the spell I laid on the object. To do that, you use your magical sight to locate the threshold of the entrance. Once that is done, smear your blood across it and use the Word unique to its location.” Mac gestured before folding his arms across his chest. “Go on. You’re bleeding too much.”

Huffing, I did as instructed. I stared at the bridge, letting my sight go unfocused. As the shimmering net superimposed itself over the bridge, I focused on the thin weave forming a tunnel and followed the rim of the circular entrance down to the ground, where the magic hit earth and rippled.

I crept forward, wary of the energies lapping against its mooring. Once on my knees, I pocketed the gauze and let my blood drip in a line from one side to the other, then I smeared my hand over it to even out the drops and create an unbroken threshold. Nothing flickered. Nothing surged. Disappointment had me balling my fist, but when I twisted to glance at Mac over my shoulder, he gave me a pleased nod.

“Say the Word,” Mac said patiently.

I scowled at him. “You didn’t give it to me.”

He jerked his chin toward the tether. “I shouldn’t have to.”

Great. He was testing me. Again.

Figuring the answer must be right in front of my face, I studied the net and then the control box, but nothing jumped out at me. All I saw were the coordinates. Mac wouldn’t use those... Would he?

“Numbers aren’t technically words,” I muttered.

The snatch of laughter I caught told me I had guessed right. With my hand planted on the blood smear, I spoke the coordinates under my breath. Waiting until my leg muscles quivered, I shoved to my feet, faced Mac and threw out my arms. “I guess this means the Morrigan will have to eat crow.”

All her scheming, all the people she had hurt, all for nothing.

My blood wasn’t counteracting his. My counter spell hadn’t kindled.

Shoulders slumping, I had to find a new bargaining chip if I wanted to get Shaw back.

His gaze strayed past me. “I wouldn’t be so sure.”

Wood groaned behind me, and I spun around in time to watch as the supports buckled. Mac and I leapt backward as the bridge collapsed on itself. Old as it was, magic was all that had been holding it together. When I cut the tether, the magic spilled into the ground and the ancient structure toppled.

“I did it.”

I
severed a tether.

“You did indeed.” He sounded pleased. “Now, let’s tend your hand so we can get moving.”

Still reeling from what I had done, I drifted to Mac in a daze of possibility, and he clasped hands with me, pressing his runes against the hairline cut on my right palm. A whiff of burnt skin rose, and I growled viciously through the pain. He inspected the temporarily cauterized wound before humming low in his throat, seeming satisfied.

“There.” He sounded apologetic. “That ought to hold.”

I curled my numb hand into a fist. “How many are left?”

“There is one tether in Winter and one in Summer. Autumn and Spring each have two.”

“So we have five to go.”

And then it was time to find the Morrigan.

Chapter Nine

––––––––

M
ac drifted as silent as a wraith through the tittering forest, his boots picking familiar paths with confident strides that left me panting in his wake, trying to keep up with him. Leaves crinkled under my heels despite my attempts to muffle the noise. Prickling on my nape confirmed we were being watched, but I scented no one. Mac walked on, unconcerned, so I mimicked his body language, using false confidence as my shield.

Five tethers remained. One more here in Autumn. But first we had to secure Mac’s den. Success meant we could make a quick trip to sever the tether and be done with this portion of Faerie. Failure meant we needed the tether active as a means of escape. In fact, I liked the idea of saving it for last for that very reason.

Figuring we were safe until reaching the den, I took in the sights. I hadn’t had time before to admire the impossible collection of trees. Bald cypress, sugar maple and black tupelo trees brushed limbs in greeting while aspen, sourwood and sassafras stood alone. Sweetgum trees dropped tiny balls on the ground for us to roll our ankles on while towering longleaf pines provided spots of green amid all the reds, oranges and golds. As an added bonus, the trees produced pinecones the length of my forearm.

A burst of mischief hit me, and I punted one such pinecone at Mac. He glided to his right, and my kick went wide. The cone bounced twice before smashing into an aspen instead of his backside.

The impact startled a
caw
from overhead, and my blood ran cold. The urge to search the sky was a twitch in my neck. But I took Mac’s lead and kept my eyes glued straight ahead and my head level.

Keep calm and carry on
.

Ahead of us, a familiar giant redwood rose from the ground. It stood well over three hundred feet tall. Its reddish-brown bark had peeled in a few places. Handfuls of its spiked green needles had shed. Hard to tell if the damage had occurred when I led the hunt on a chase through Mac’s living room or if the damage was recent. I hadn’t seen the den after accidentally riding a tether via one of his doors.

Unfazed, Mac led on while gooseflesh peaked my skin, though his pace slowed until I caught up easily. He planted his feet as the wind changed, and the scent of wet feathers and musk hit my nose.

An eager gleam lit his eyes, and black-green power sparked in his palm. Together we tilted back our heads. Black bodies perched on the limbs above us, humanoid but covered in silky feathers.

“Aves,” Mac growled.

Curious what the heck an Aves was, I glanced at him in question. Eyes tightening at the corners, he shoved me behind him. Or he tried to. I tripped on an exposed root and fell onto my hands and knees, spitting mad, ready to break him off a piece of my mind.

Then I saw them.

Aves.

Swarming
.

“Oh crap.”

Pain radiated through my shoulder. My face smacked into the dirt, and I spat moldy leaves. Talons pierced my back, wings brushed my cheek and hot breath blasted my nape. The dull scrape of a beak followed. A flash of bird-boy snapping my neck flickered in my head.

Not today
.

Torquing my upper body, I threw all my strength behind my elbow, slamming it into his ribs. It squawked and flapped its wings, achieving liftoff and lightening the load on my back. Bracing palms on the earth, I shoved up and yanked my feet under me. Bird-boy toppled with a grunt when I stood.

Static crackled over my skin, and I yelped when green light flashed by my foot, blasting clods of dirt into the air. I half-expected smoke to curl up from my boots. None did, thank God. My assailant, however, wasn’t as lucky. He had been reduced to a heap of charred bones and vaporized feathers.

The almost magnetic pull of Mac’s emerald gaze drew mine to him, and I gulped. “Mac?”

Intricate runes mapped every visible inch of his face and neck, including his scalp under his closely cropped hair. Symbols covered his lips. His eyelids, when he blinked, were also marked. This was the real Macsen Sullivan, the one fae whispered about behind their hands and feared crossing in the dead of night. This was the face of Faerie justice. Even in this, he maintained balance, the patterns symmetrical, carrying equal weight in proportion to the area of his body they emblazoned.

All this time I had been seeing him through a layer of glamour.

I stared into my possible future, terrified of so much magic owning real estate on my body.

“Thierry.”

His voice snapped me to attention, and I cut him a sharp nod.

After turning a slow circle, I spotted three more scorched-earth marks left from where Mac had ended lives with a flick of his rune-stained wrist. Standing there stunned, I whooshed out a surprised breath when another bird-thing leapt onto my back. I spun toward the nearest tree and rammed my spine against the trunk until the creature’s grip slacked, and I scraped it off me using the rough bark.

Staggering forward, I scanned the forest and then the limbs over my head. Both were clear.

“Are you all right?” Mac’s voice rose behind me.

“Fine.” I rubbed my shoulder. “What were those?”

“Aves—half man and half bird.” He came to my side. “The Morrigan bred them herself.”

Eww
. I wasn’t going to ask how that was possible.

“I counted seven bodies,” he said. “Females mate with two males. That means two escaped.”

“What about him?” I pointed to the one I had knocked unconscious. “Do we leave him?”

“We might as well.” Mac dusted his hands. “The others flew straight to the Morrigan, I’m sure.”

“Great.” The giant redwood caught my eye. “She knows where we are and what we’ve done.”

What
I
had done.

Confirmation from her spies ought to buy Shaw more time. Silver lining, right?

Mac walked to my side and stared out at his home. “We should get inside.”

I grabbed his arm when he rocked forward. “How do we know it’s not booby-trapped?”

“The den is more heavily warded than the grounds.” A twinkle lit his eyes. “Why do you think she sent Aves?”

“They kept to the trees.” I considered it. “That’s why they attacked us physically.”

“Aves possess no magic, but even if they had been armed with spells, they are useless here.”

I fell into line behind him, watching our backs. I lifted my chin and drew a long breath in to fill my lungs. Burnt feathers and cooked meat stuffed my nose. A troll could be right behind us, and I wouldn’t smell him. Given their diet, that was saying something. Generally, when a person had corpse stuck between their teeth, you smelled them long before they got close enough for a chat.

Rubbing my hands down my arms, I asked, “Do you think she’ll try to stop us?”

“Not yet.” He sounded resigned. “She’ll want to see what you’re capable of herself.”

Great. Lucky me I wasn’t one to suffer performance anxiety.

The Morrigan’s ability to shapeshift into a crow meant she had a bird’s-eye view for everything Mac taught me. Well, I hoped she enjoyed the show. My one-woman act would be coming to a tether near her soon. As an Unseelie, she must have set up camp in the Halls of Winter. Mac said there was a tether there, and she would be guarding it I was sure. The denizens of Summer were no less lethal, but after Balamohan, I was nursing a healthy...not fear...but respect for the Morrigan’s ruthlessness.

The short walk from the Aves slaughter to Mac’s den took no time. I kept an eye out for Aves or other fae loyal to the Morrigan, but it seemed we were alone. As Diode, the lock on the massive door had given Mac trouble. Thanks to the power of opposable thumbs, Mac worked his lock in seconds. I scooted aside as a three-foot section of the trunk swung open, and smoothed my fingers over the shaggy bark, tracing claw and teeth marks left from the hounds who had hunted me. With a shiver, I dusted my hands and sidestepped Mac. Entering his circular living room, I gave him space to heft a bar into place behind us.