Silver Skin (A Cold Iron Novel) (12 page)

“Yes,” Helene said. “You already know him.”

When she didn’t say more, Beth’s face fell. She shook her head. “
No
. Miach is not the same thing. Not at all. Conn is . . . Conn has always been different. Do you know what the Fae call him? The Betrayer. He betrayed them to the Druids, because they used and degraded his half-blood daughter like a plaything. He has always valued people more than other Fae do, Helene. More than Miach does.”

“Miach does value people. He loves his granddaughter, his family.”
And I think I might like it if he loved me
, she thought, but she didn’t say it.

“But he views women who aren’t his offspring as playthings and broodmares,” said Beth flatly. “When Conn brought me to him, I was dying. I had been wounded by a Fae sword. Miach tried to bargain with Conn for me, like I was chattel.”

“You’re a Druid,” said Helene. “He doesn’t like Druids very much.”

“With good reason,” Beth admitted. “But that doesn’t change Miach’s nature. He’s not just Fae. He’s a criminal. He lives in a big beautiful house, but he conducts his business from a bar off Broadway that you wouldn’t set foot in during broad daylight. He’s Fae dangerous
and
human dangerous. And even if you were tempted, if he tried to seduce you, he’d soon regret it.”

“Because of the
geis
you placed on him.”

Beth gave her a wry smile. “It sounds like it was a wise precaution.”

“I want you to remove it,” said Helene.

Beth’s chestnut brows knit. Then she shook her head. “No. I won’t do that.”

“He might die if you don’t,” said Helene.

Now Beth’s brows rose in skeptical surprise. “Helene, whatever he’s told you, the
geis
I cast isn’t fatal.”

“It may be, if he was already severely poisoned with cold iron when he violated it.”

And Helene told her. She poured out the whole story, beginning with the gala and the blackouts. She explained how she had been unable to confide in Beth because of the
geis
on her shoulder, and how Miach had come to the museum to search for an answer. Helene described the solstice gate in the basement, which outraged Beth.

“That’s my collection,” she said. “They had no right.”

And Helene told her about the summons, her close brush with death on the roof, the iron filings spread upon the stairs, laid out as a trap for Miach. And how after he had found the memory
geis
on her skin in the library, they had violated Beth’s prohibition.

“It only serves him right,” said Beth. “He took advantage of your vulnerability.”

“I wanted what happened,” said Helene. “As much as he did.”

“Were you touching cold iron?” asked Beth.

“No.”

“Then you wanted what
he
wanted, because he used his voice on you.”

Helene shook her head. “His voice was ravaged by the iron. There was no . . . music in it.”

Just raw desire.

Beth sighed. “Well, it seems Miach doesn’t deserve to die, and we do need his strength. But if I do remove the
geis
, you’ll have to promise me something.”

“What?” Helene asked, feeling at once relieved and anxious.

“You have to protect yourself. You have to be as careful as you can. I want you to carry cold iron with you, always. With it, you can see through his glamour, resist his voice. You can moderate the dangerously seductive lure of his hands, his touch, his body against yours. You can’t let your guard down around him, Helene. Ever.”

“I have a bit of black iron, a disk in my pocket. And I understand how it works.”

Beth must have been able to see her doubt, because she reached out and took Helene’s hand.

“Miach will keep you safe,” Beth said, “even if you don’t become his lover. He needs me, even unskilled as I am, to help him keep the wall between worlds intact. And now that Conn and I are home, we’ll get to the bottom of these attacks.”

• • •

D
inner was indeed cooked by
Kevin, with a little help from Conn, and served by Deirdre and Nieve in the pretty white dining room on a long mahogany table. It was a curious mix of Fae luxury and casual hospitality: roast beef with vegetables from the garden served on platinum-bordered china plates. Garrett drank his apple juice from fine Irish crystal. And Conn quizzed Kevin on the types of peppercorns he used in his grinder. Helene had never even considered that pepper came in types. Beth smirked through the exchange, and Deirdre smiled her secret Fae smile, appearing reconciled, at least for now, with the Druid’s presence.

Afterward Miach and Beth Carter went outside. Helene watched them from the parlor window while Nieve cleared the plates off the table and Garrett ran around the dining room chasing a wily gray cat.

Helene couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Beth’s tones were firm and cold, and Miach’s, shockingly, sounded unassuming, even humble. They came back inside a few minutes later, trailed by Conn and Elada. The dining room table had been cleared, and Helene realized that a council of war was about to take place. Deirdre, composed now but still keeping a careful eye on Beth, took her seat at the head of the table. It had been a courtesy during the meal, but now it was an acknowledgment that they were only safe in her house through her goodwill.

Kevin ceded the chair at the other end to Miach, and took a seat at the right hand of his lover.

Elada, who had taken the chair to Miach’s right, objected. “Kevin is human. He has no place in this.”

“So is Beth,” said Helene.

“Druids aren’t human,” replied Elada. “They might have been once, but they haven’t been for a long time.”

“I’m human,” said Helene.

“And I’m not leaving,” said Kevin. “You brought danger into our house. I deserve to know how you plan to remove it. If I share your troubles, then I share your confidence.”

“Helene and Kevin stay,” declared Miach.

They all sat down.

“I’ve arranged a meeting with Finn,” he said.

Nieve, who had still been clearing the sideboard, suddenly stopped.

“What about the
geis
?” asked Helene. “Are you strong enough to meet him?”

Miach took her hand under the table. The gesture of comfort touched her, but when he lifted their twined palms up so that everyone else in the room could see, a shiver ran through her. He was staking a claim. Now, if ever, was the time to reject it.

“The
geis
is no longer a consideration,” he said.

So Beth had rescinded it. Helene’s best friend didn’t look particularly pleased by Miach’s show of public affection—if you could call it that—but she didn’t comment.

“What if Finn is behind this?” asked Beth.

“We’ll know that soon enough. I’m going to cast a reflection spell on Helene. If one of Finn’s family wrote the memory
geis
on her thigh, he’ll light up like a firework if he gets within a hundred feet.”

“No,” said Beth. “You’re not bringing Helene with us. She’s been through enough. And it isn’t safe.”

“I’m not afraid,” lied Helene. She was afraid, but she didn’t think that hiding at Deirdre’s would solve the problem.

“Helene has to come,” said Miach. “The memory spell is used to feeding regularly during her blackouts, and it will not tolerate starvation. If we don’t remove it, the thing will kill her. I can’t remove it while I’m iron sick, and we don’t have time to wait for the poison to pass out of my blood.”

“I’m strong enough,” said Beth. “You can channel me.”

“You don’t have sufficient control of your power,” said Miach. “Finn’s son Garrett studied with me from the time he was nine years old. You’ve had access to your power for less than a year. Do you really think you can funnel it to me with no stutters, no surges at all? Because once I take hold of the
geis
, if you falter for even a second, the parasite will get loose in Helene’s body and she will die.”

Beth’s face fell. “No,” she said quietly. “I’m not ready for that. Not yet. I’m sorry, Helene.”

“Garrett won’t let you down,” said Nieve. Helene had forgotten she was still in the room.

Miach outlined the details of the meeting. He was going to do his best to hide his condition from Finn, but there was no way to completely conceal his case of iron poisoning. Conn and Elada would act as muscle, along with Liam and Nial. Two more cars full of half-blood MacCechts would follow them to the meeting place.

Beth, as a Druid, could not be included. Her presence would only raise and inflame old grievances. She and Nieve were to remain with Deirdre and Kevin.

“You can practice your casting on the roof-deck hatch,” said Miach, when Beth asked him what she was supposed to do. Helene could see that her friend didn’t like the arrangement, but she couldn’t argue with it.

When the meeting broke up, Conn and Elada went into the yard to practice their swordplay and spar a bit. Helene asked Miach what he planned to do until their rendezvous with Finn later that night.

“I’m going to prepare myself to meet my enemy,” he said, “by making sure the little Druid’s
geis
has been removed.”

Helene’s heart beat faster. “Beth said she would make a condition. That I had to be touching cold iron.” She had a piece in her pocket. Her fingers slid over it now.

Miach smiled. “Beth made an exception. So long as my voice is ironbound, which is likely to be the case until almost all the poison has worked its way out of my blood, we don’t need the cold iron.”

“Oh.” It would allow them to be together, but she had hoped for some token, a tangible symbol of his . . . respect for her will. A gift of cold iron like the one Conn had made to Beth. Or as Deirdre—a more typical Fae, Beth would argue—had made to Kevin.

“You have to understand, Helene, I’ve got so much of the stuff coursing through my body right now that I simply can’t expose myself to any more.”

“I understand,” she said. Conn had also offered Beth an unconditional commitment. Helene even suspected that Deirdre had given as much to Kevin.

Miach had never offered that to any woman, would not offer it to her. She had decided earlier to accept the pleasure that he promised, to learn what it was like with a Fae. And she had her own piece of cold iron. She did not need it from him. But a little piece of her heart broke to think that theirs would be a relationship—no, an encounter—with limited possibilities. Like dating. She knew where it was going, and that it would end in disappointment.

She shook off this depressing reverie; Miach was speaking again.

“ . . . so I will ask you to refrain from wearing
this
until I’m myself again, Helene.”

He held out a silver box. It was small and intricately worked, carved with a pattern of twining leaves and vines, the hinge invisible, the seam nearly so, only one leaf standing forth, the clasp, to indicate that it was not a solid object.

She pressed the leaf. The box sprang open. Inside was a slender filament of black iron. It was curved like a bracelet, chased with the whorls and dots Helene had seen on the solstice gate stones. Both ends terminated in spirals. She lifted it from the box, which was lined, she noted, with more silver, the metal of the Fae, to protect Miach from the contents.

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

“It’s small enough that the effect on me will be negligible when I’m well. But as long as it touches your skin, you’ll be able to see through Fae glamour, and you’ll be immune to Fae compulsion. You should wear it to our rendezvous with Finn tonight.”

For a moment she was fascinated by the slender ribbon of iron. She lifted it from the box. It was fine enough to be flexible, small enough to wrap around her wrist, large enough to open and clasp around her ankle. And the surface had been buffed to an impossible smoothness on which the swirling pattern had been etched.

A chilling certainty stole over her as she held his gift. He had said that the effect of the iron would be negligible on him—when he was well. But he was still not well. His color had improved during dinner. He no longer looked at death’s door. But the other Fae had been unable to stop themselves from stealing glances at him over dinner. Elada’s had been concerned. Conn’s had been almost as worried. Deirdre’s eyes had been haunted.

Helene placed the bracelet back inside the box and snapped it shut.

“You’re not well yet,” she said. “Why are you giving me this now?”

“You don’t miss much, do you?” Miach asked. She had seen him angry, she had seen him consumed by lust, she had even seen him apologetic, a rare thing for a Fae. She had never seen him wistful.

“Because I wanted you to have it, Helene, to know that I intended to make this gift—in case one or the other of us fails to survive the night.”

Chapter 9

M
iach allowed Helene to lead him upstairs to her room. They could not speak openly in the hearing of the others. Elada, as Miach’s right hand, knew the odds, but he was bound to the sorcerer, and had agreed that the plan was their only chance of saving Helene. Conn no doubt suspected the danger they were in, but he had made a pledge once to protect Miach and his family from the Wild Hunt. He, too, felt himself bound to come.

And if they were to have any chance at all of walking out of Charlestown alive tonight, Helene had to know the stakes.

He had never really considered it before, but he liked Deirdre’s house. It was older than his, and smaller, but more modern inside. And it was quiet. Not the quiet of the countryside or the suburbs but the special quiet of the city, of the secluded byway. When you turned into Deirdre’s narrow drive, the noise of the city stopped at once, and you could hear and feel the stillness and silence.

Especially upstairs under the eaves in Helene’s room. The only sounds that penetrated were those of the household, of Nieve talking to little Garrett downstairs, of Conn sharpening his ensorcelled blade in the kitchen. No doubt Kevin would find his whetstone shaved down to nothing in the morning. And there was Deirdre’s voice, singing to herself in the studio below—as ever, it carried with it a whisper of the carnal and erotic.

It had been a very long time since Miach had considered his own mortality. He discovered that he had few regrets, but if Finn killed him tonight, not making love to Helene Whitney would decidedly be one of them.

He entered the room and sat down on the bed. They were in accord now, had been so since he’d arrived at the house. He didn’t want to tell her what kind of danger she was in just yet.

“Maybe you should leave the torc in the box, and we should test out Beth’s promise to release me from the
geis
.”

Helene hung back at the door. She raised her blond brows skeptically. “Are you sure you’re sufficiently recovered from the iron poisoning?”

“I’m not,” he admitted. “I withered most of the vines growing in Deirdre’s courtyard—she’ll probably have a fit when she finally notices—but the only true cure for iron poisoning is time.” And they did not have enough of it.

“My magic is still weak, but being alone in a bedroom with you is doing much to revive me.”

“So we test out Beth’s promise? I don’t believe you have the slightest doubt about Beth’s
geis
being gone, Miach, or you wouldn’t even suggest risking weakening yourself further before meeting Finn. Not with Nieve’s safety at stake. And as much as I would like to climb onto that bed with you, I think you’ve got something else on your mind as well. That you’re stalling me with flirtation. I think you haven’t told me the whole truth about tonight, and I’d like to know.”

She was perceptive. He liked that about her. For the most part. And she was learning fast, adapting to his world. He wished she did not have to deal with, to adapt to, so much of the
ugliness
of it.

“The Fae are not given to regret or self-recriminations,” he said. “But I wish that your introduction to my kind had not been so unhappy. I wish I had showed you that beach near my house.”

“Why do you think we won’t have the chance to see it together?”

“Finn and I have been locked in mortal enmity for thousands of years. There was a time, just recently, when we had reconciled, and I took his son Garrett as my student. Finn’s line does not beget sorcerers often, but the boy was very promising, more so than any Fae born since the fall.”

He stopped. He wanted to explain himself, and that was distinctly un-Fae, too. But he wanted her to understand not just the
what
, but the
why
.

“The memory
geis
on your skin is killing you. The longer I keep you away from your Fae persecutor, and keep you safe from his murderous designs, the hungrier the damned
geis
grows. It has been fed on rich stuff this last month, nearly every day, from what you tell me, for many hours. The memories of your abduction would have been heady with fear, no doubt tinged by humiliation, anger, loneliness. It has had only thin gruel today, two short episodes, and neither was likely to be as satisfying for it, because you wouldn’t have been as frightened since finding an ally . . . a friend. By morning the parasite will turn on you and begin devouring your past, then your present, and by nightfall it will have stolen your future. Unless Finn can be persuaded to help us.”

“Because you need his son’s power to remove the
geis
tonight.”

“Yes,” said Miach. “If he refuses, you will die, Helene. And make no mistake, he has every reason to refuse. I extracted an oath from him. A terrible
geis
. And I placed it upon his whole family, his followers, all the Fianna.”

“For Nieve,” said Helene. “You forbade them from seeing her or Garrett. Elada told me what happened. And I saw firsthand how different your physiology became when you were first poisoned by the iron. You did it because you love her and you were terrified for her. I understand that.”

Miach listened, more impressed than ever by Helene’s perceptiveness. She seemed to understand him better than he did himself at times.

“The night we met,” she said, “you were trying to save Beth from a similar fate. I understand that, too, now.”

“I should have explained myself then.”

“I’m not sure I would have understood,” she admitted. “Not then. Or believed you. And by the time I would have understood and believed, your son had already kidnapped me.”

“If it makes you feel any better, Brian has tried to kill me twice since I banished him.”

Her brows knit. “You banished your own son?”

“His actions were unforgivable, Helene. I will admit that I raised my children to be criminals. To extort money from the businesses we protect, to steal goods from the docks. It is much the same racket that we Fae practiced for thousands of years. Give us your milk and your honey, the bounty of your crops, the finest work of your hands, your comeliest maids, and we won’t torment, torture, and kill you. And when the invaders come, as they did every few years, we will protect your hearths and homes, will kill them instead. But I did not raise my children to be truly Fae. I did not raise them to toy with living beings like so many playthings. And yet, no one is to blame for Brian but me. He is not just my descendant, but my own son.”

“I don’t blame you for what Brian did. And I can understand why you thought you had to kill Beth. I met the Prince Consort that night. He was . . .
evil
,” she said. “You couldn’t have allowed Beth to free others like him. Not if they would have targeted your family.”

He liked her so damned much. Wanted her as a friend and a lover. Had to be honest with her. “What you have seen so far is only a small glimpse of the Fae. There is beauty in our world. So much beauty. Music and painting and a kind of pure sensuality, uninhibited, that I want to show you. But there is a fight coming. A battle against the ugliest side of our nature. The Fae Court, the Wild Hunt, the Queen and her minions, they’re truly terrible, evil. They delight in cruelty. It is more than decadence. There is a rot in them that goes all the way through to the core.”

He looked at Helene, driving home his point even though it pained him. “The Fae who cast that memory
geis
on you knew exactly what it would do to you when he was finished with you. That wasn’t a cost or a tradeoff to him, in accomplishing his purposes. To him, and those of his kind, it would simply be a little bonus.”

Helene bit her lip. She held up the silver box with the cold iron torc in it. He hoped she was not going to ask him where he had gotten it. His collection of Druid iron had not been acquired through barter or trade. The torcs and earrings, rings and pendants were all trophies. Taken from the corpses of dead Druids. The killing had gone on for a long time. At first, when he and Finn were still freeing captive Fae—finding them broken and bloody, used and abused like Deirdre, chained to the temple walls—killing was easy. Necessary. War.

Then it had become pleasure, and Miach had stopped.

“I want to accept this,” Helene said. “But I need to know what it means. I saw something today.” She looked away, took a deep breath, then met his eyes. “I saw Kevin and Deirdre together in the studio.”

“Ah.” He tried to sound casual,
knowing
. But knowing Deirdre, the possibilities were endless.

“They invited me to join them.”

That particular possibility had occurred to him, but the image it suggested when spoken aloud was deeply Fae and deeply appealing. If only on a wholly theoretical level. A tangle of beautiful writhing bodies. A symphony of moans and sighs. But when he pictured it, he did not focus on Deirdre’s pneumatic breasts or ample buttocks, or the sensual music of her Fae cries, although he knew them exceedingly well from past experience. It was Helene he fixed on, and he realized that the idea only excited him if the mise-en-scène
was centered on her, on exploring new pleasure
with
her. And the fantasy didn’t end in a Fae orgy but in Miach entering the room. In Miach extending his hand and Helene taking it, with her leaving to be alone with him.

“Did you?” he asked. “Did you join them?” If she had, he would be jealous, but he could not be angry, because he had sent her here, into a Fae household. He had done it to protect her life. He had not thought much about her sensibilities. Or how she might be tempted or confused by the things found there. He had been invited to participate in such trysts before, without the choice of refusal. He knew what conflicted emotions such idylls roused.

Helene laughed. “No.” She paused. “Or not intentionally. The way she—the way
they
—looked. And Deirdre’s voice was so . . . I was inside the room and practically on top of them before I even knew what I was doing. And then I ran. Because I knew that wasn’t something I wanted to do. Not really. There are all kinds of things that are exciting to imagine, to talk about, but that I don’t want to do in practice, and I think that may be one of them. But right now I need to know if that’s something you would
expect
from me. If that’s a Fae thing. If you do that.”

He considered his answer. “It is not something I would expect from you, Helene. It is, in a sense, a Fae thing. We live thousands of years. Boredom, the desperate quest for feeling, for sensation, can lead to an adventurous bent, or it can lead—often leads—to decadence. And decadence in itself, if it harms no one, if everyone participates by choice, is one of the least of Fae vices. But there are those who pass through decadence and come out the other side. Amoral, unfeeling, impossible to rouse without blood and cruelty.”

“It wasn’t like that,” said Helene. “They were . . . they are so focused on each other. That’s why I don’t understand how they could ask someone else to take part.”

“You’re right: Deirdre is many things, but she’s not like that. She and Kevin have been lovers for eighty years. The guests in their bed are just that, guests. And always willing”

“Kevin is barely thirty,” said Helene. “I’ve seen his photos in magazines.”

“Kevin came through Ellis Island in his teens. He didn’t inherit a fortune, he made one, and has remade himself as his own descendant every couple of decades. As Beth will have to, if she wishes to avoid notice in the human world, now that she is bound to a Fae. But you will observe that she and Conn do not invite others into their bed. Or I’m sure they’d have invited you, Helene. They choose not to share each other. And neither would we.”

The relief on her face was obvious.

“Unless, of course, you insisted,” he added mischievously.

“No.” She crossed the room. “The only Fae I want in
my
bed, provided I live through the night to share it with anyone, is you.”

• • •

H
elene set the silver box
on her nightstand. Miach MacCecht was going to bargain with his worst enemy for her life. She climbed onto the bed beside the sorcerer and kissed him. He responded, eagerly, running his fingers through her hair and cupping her face in his hands.

“We don’t have the time now, Helene,” he said. “But we will later.”

She expected that to be it. She expected him to get up and leave her alone in her bedroom, because she had accepted that he was Fae and not human. But he did something naturally and of his own will that her human boyfriends only did on sufferance. He pulled her into his arms and rolled them onto the bed together. Their legs were tangled. Her head came to rest on his chest. His fingers started to stroke her hair.

Affection. It was the thing that had been missing, the thing she had been looking for when dating, though she hadn’t realized it until that moment. Growing up a tomboy, patterning her behavior after her older brothers, she hadn’t been the hugging kind. Girls who air-kissed and hung on one another had seemed . . . girly. In a way that Helene was not. It was the part of being feminine she had never quite mastered, and her own awkwardness in this, in the giving and receiving of affection, coupled with the emotional distance of the men she dated meant she had experienced almost none of it since childhood.