Silver Skin (A Cold Iron Novel) (19 page)

Miach had banished Brian after the business with Helene Whitney. All of South Boston knew he was not welcome there. And just in case he tried to take his anger out on Helene, Miach had kept tabs on her through Nial and Liam. And he’d believed she’d been safe.

If Brian hurt her this time, Miach would take away those memories, whether she agreed to it or not. If he could get her back, he would take all of this away—the blackouts, the
geis
, the harrowing encounter with Finn—and if she didn’t want to be in his life, he’d give her own back to her, with no memory or understanding of the Fae. He would cross Beth Carter over it, no doubt, but in this he was determined to prevail.

By the time the bullet was out and Nial was stable, Miach knew he had drained himself dangerously. “Call Angus and Kermit,” said Miach. “The whole family.”

Liam swallowed hard and Miach knew it was bad news. “Angus and Kermit and the boys are at Mass General. The Fianna have Garrett.”

• • •

H
elene cried herself out in
the brick coffin. When she had nothing left in her, she listened to the sounds of the basement and stared in vain at the floor, hoping to see light under the door.

There was no light, but there was sound. Druids passed her door twice, talking excitedly to one another. Once Helene heard a distant scream and prayed it wasn’t Nieve, which was selfish, because she wouldn’t wish this horror on anyone.

She checked her phone again for a signal. For a second she saw a single bar flash, then it winked out. As though a connection to the outside world had drifted by on the breeze. It was possible that the basement was like the museum, with thick metal signal-blocking supports in one or more directions but pockets where her phone might work.

She tried turning in the enclosed space but it was too tight, so instead she passed the phone around her body from one hand to another and found she could get a single bar of service if she held it against her hip in the left corner of the cell.

She was so startled when it rang that she almost dropped it, and the sound echoed and rang off the brick so loudly that even though she muted it as fast as she could, fumbling in the suffocating space, she was sure she would hear running feet any minute, that the door would open and the phone would be taken away and she would be sealed in there forever.

She dared not raise the phone to her head or risk losing the signal, so she crouched, her legs too long to bend in the shaft she was entombed in, hunching her shoulders and bending her neck double. She answered.

“Helene.”

Miach. “Tell me where you are.”

“Winthrop,” she said. “The house I gave you the address of.”

“Is Nieve with you?”

“No. They took her somewhere else.”

“All right. Stay calm. I’m going to
pass
to you.”

“You can’t. The space is too small. It’s like a brick coffin.”

“My God, Helene.”

“This is a trap,” she said. “Brian wants you to open a box for him. There’s something inside that these people want.”

She knew she was crying. She should stop. But she couldn’t.

“Don’t cry, my love,” he said.

She might not have noticed the endearment at any other time, but she noticed it now.
My love.

His voice washed over her.

“Did they take your iron away?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Good. I want you to listen to me. To my voice. Don’t fight it. Trust me this once. I love you. And you are not afraid, because a brick coffin is no match for Helene Whitney, and I’m coming for you.”

Chapter 15

H
er fear dissolved. It was like the Dutch courage she’d downed before Miach had removed the
geis
. His voice was like whiskey. It warmed her inside.

“They have cold iron,” she said.

“I know,” he replied. “Don’t worry about me. Just tell me everything you know about where you are.”

She told him. She described the street and the stone wall and the iron gate. She described the drive to the house, the parkland around it, the beach behind it, and as much of the layout of the three-story structure as she had seen. She’d counted steps to the basement and doors and these she relayed to him now with a warning. “There are dozens of Druids,” she said.

“I know,” he said. “We found their training camp at Clonmel.”

“They want to experiment on Nieve. You have to get her out first. Brian said he’s saving me.”

“For what?” Miach’s voice was cold.

“So the Court can torture Miach MacCecht’s whore, he said. But they’ve got Nieve on a table in a lab now. And there’s something wrong with them. They’re people but they’re . . . they’re cruel. Wild-eyed. I don’t understand it. Beth’s not like that.”

“And she never will be, Helene. You don’t have to worry about that. Beth trained herself from a young age, even though she didn’t recognize what she was doing as such. By the time she came into her power, she was ready for it. Tapping into that kind of force is like . . . getting a glimpse at the whole universe at one time. Real Druids prepared for decades for that moment. The ones you’ve met were ripped out of their regular lives and shown something that would drive most humans mad. It used to drive some Druid acolytes mad even after years of preparation.”

“They’re not just crazy,” she said. “They’re bloodthirsty.”

“They had their power forced on them by the Prince Consort. His tendencies no doubt inform their own.”

Helene heard footsteps outside her door. She ended the call, turned the ringer off, and stuffed the phone into her pocket.

The footsteps passed by without pausing. She took her phone back out, but there was no signal again and she couldn’t get even a single bar, no matter which way she turned.

• • •

M
iach knew there was no
chance of storming the Druid compound with an army of MacCechts. Liam had been beaten to within an inch of his life and Nial was only barely stable. Angus and Kermit and their boys were in the hospital. The Fianna had outnumbered them badly.

Miach had worried that Finn and Garrett might try to take Nieve, but the viciousness of the attack and the fact that Garrett had not been with them and they hadn’t wanted Nieve, had shocked him. It was a mystery to be solved later. For now, he had to get Nieve and Helene out.

There was no time to wait for Elada, no possibility that Conn could leave Beth unprotected now, with half-mad Druids on the loose here and abroad. It would have to be Miach, on his own, by stealth.

And he would have to rescue Nieve first. Helene was trapped in her worst nightmare—a space so narrow she couldn’t move—and she had still told him to rescue his granddaughter first. Helene didn’t exaggerate; he had seen her in the most extreme circumstances and she’d never panicked. If she thought Nieve was in imminent danger, then she was probably right.

Miach passed to a street outside the walls of the Druid compound. He skirted the perimeter and spied two surveillance cameras near the main gate and one along the wall focused on the busiest of the streets. None to the east, where the property narrowed and the wall met the scrubby beach, then ended, and a chain-link fence divided public from private beach.

Wary of the blind stone wall, he made his way to the fence and jumped it. A wise choice. Where the wall ended, he could see the iron spikes, freshly driven into the masonry on top.

The property was rocky and barren with no shrubs, just the occasional tree, and should someone chance to look out of the windows, he would be seen. Fortunately most of the windows appeared to have makeshift coverings: newspaper, sheets, and in one case, a beach towel. This wasn’t surprising. These mis-made Druids would probably live like animals, their minds cracked open wide, their ability to reason compromised. The bloodthirstiness, the violence would be the parts of their Druid heritage they gravitated toward if they had been forced to their power by the Prince Consort. Their cruelty was something the Druids had learned from their masters, and the Prince Consort was the consummate Fae.

Miach ran from tree to spindly tree, getting as close to the house as possible without being detected. There was a low projecting wing at this side of the house that was cut off from the water and lacked sea views. Miach thought it likely to house the kitchen Helene had described, where the Druids had taken Nieve.

He ran the last fifty feet to the porch at the back, where a screen door stood open, and slipped inside. There was a long hall leading to the front of the house. The bare floors and plain walls suggested he had indeed found the servants’ wing. A door just inside the entry appeared to lead down into a basement. That was where Helene would be. And further along the corridor must be the kitchen.

He approached the kitchen, steeling himself for what he expected to find inside. He heard voices raised in excitement and, beneath them, the sound of someone softly moaning. He entered to find a scene of horror. There were seven Druids gathered around the table. All he could see of Nieve was her slender ankle, hanging over the side.

Miach cast a stillness over the room that froze every one of the Druids in place. He drew his dirk and approached the table. He touched Nieve’s throat. Her pulse was too fast. Shallow cuts scored her arms and legs, but none were deep and, thank Dana, none would be fatal. He could do nothing for her yet, because he needed to
pass
with her, and carrying a living being would take a great deal of power. He waved his hand over her eyes and sent her into a deep sleep.

The Druids were conscious, their eyes darting madly. Two had protective
gaesa
, incorrectly written, on their arms. A transcription error no real Druid would ever have made, because it rendered the marks harmless, mere poseur tattoos. He slit their throats first. He stabbed the rest cleanly through the heart. Then he gathered his granddaughter’s body up in his arms and
passed
.

Humans usually went mad when they
passed
with the Fae. Beth Carter had barely survived the experience, and she had been a talented and powerful Druid. Nieve was out cold, or he would not have been able to risk it.

He could not take Nieve to his own home. If he failed to defeat the rest of the Druids and his renegade sons, his house would be vulnerable to another attack. Liam and Nial were in no shape to defend Nieve, and neither were Angus or Kermit.

Miach had no other choice. He
passed
through wood, water, earth, and stone and breathed air again at the top of Bunker Hill, in the shadow of the monument and Finn’s towering mansion. Miach had no doubt that Garrett would have warded the place, which would make him unable to
pass
inside. Instead, Miach stood across the street, the grassy slopes of the monument at his back.

Carrying Nieve had drained him. He felt his knees buckle, heard tourists exclaim in surprise. Saw children point and heard a woman shriek, because Nieve was bloody and disheveled. He gathered his strength and crossed the street, because he could not let her fall into the hands of human doctors. He had no way of knowing what the Druids had done, if they had only used their knives and instruments on her, or if they had worked spells or
gaesa
as well.

At the foot of the granite steps to Finn’s brownstone mansion, he faltered. The doors opened and the Fianna streamed out. He heard a window flung up overheard, followed by a voice issuing commands. Then Garrett was through the doors and lifting Nieve out of Miach’s arms.

“What happened?” he asked, his eyes wild with grief and concern.

A small piping voice from the top of the stairs cried, “Mama.”

“For the love of Dana,” said Miach, “don’t let him see her like that.”

Garrett shouted for his cousins to take the boy inside.

“She released me,” said Garrett. “I thought you made her do it, that you were double-crossing us. Nieve,” he said, “Oh, Nieve.”

It did not make Miach more confident of his choice to bring her here. He had kept tabs on Garrett since forbidding the boy to see Nieve, and been disappointed in him. Garrett had taken dozens of women in the last two years, some while Nieve lay fighting for her life. Miach had not liked lifting his
geis
on the Fianna. Miach had hoped Nieve might get over Garrett and find someone who loved her, who would keep faith with her, but they had bound themselves together, children that they were, and there was no undoing the union without their consent. He had hoped that the women meant nothing to Garrett, that his behavior was only his Fae nature asserting itself, but it was disheartening to find that this boy Nieve had placed her trust in had been so quick to believe in her betrayal. And that he had no choice but to leave her with him.

“There are Druids,” Miach said, “in a house in Winthrop. They have Helene Whitney. I am going back for her. Can you take care of Nieve?”

Garrett nodded.

“Good,” said Miach. “If I don’t come back, it will be up to you to destroy them. They mean to bring down the wall between worlds. If the Court is released, your son will suffer, so much so that you will want to end his life yourself. Do you understand me?”

Garrett nodded again.

“Conn and Elada are in Clonmel. Seek their help when they return,” said Miach.

“You’re in the wrong neighborhood, Miach MacCecht.” Finn stood at the top of the stairs, sword in hand. “And without your right hand.”

“I’m leaving,” said Miach.

“Let me speed you on your way,” replied Finn, drawing his silver sword.

“No,” said Garrett. “Let him go. He brought Nieve back to me. And I will cast on any of the Fianna who try to stop him.”

Miach nodded and stepped back. He was weak, far too weak from
passing
with Nieve. He would never be able to
pass
from the house in Winthrop carrying Helene Whitney, even if he thought her sanity would survive the experience. He was going back for her, and he would make certain that she got out of there, but he knew his own fate was far from secure.

So he did what friendship—longstanding and so many times tested—required, and he released Elada. Then he went back for Helene Whitney.

• • •

E
lada felt his tie to
the sorcerer snap. It had woken him as he’d drifted in and out of consciousness for the better part of an hour. From long experience of being patched up by Miach, he knew that if his injuries were serious enough to require the sorcerer’s skills, unconsciousness was preferable while he was healing.

He had been barely two hundred years old when he’d bound himself to Miach, and he could not remember what it felt like to be free. It had never occurred to him that their tie might be broken. Death was the only way such partnerships usually ended, and he knew that Miach was not dead.

Unless Miach’s death was related to the pain in his chest, the sawing way in which he drew breath, the burning feeling in his lungs. And that didn’t sound right at all. He had heard it described as a weakness and an emptiness and ennui. The feeling that a part of you had already
passed
to Dana and that you were only waiting to follow.

This was nothing like that. This was more like the time he had been caught in another mage’s fireball and his lungs had been seared.

That’s when Elada remembered the explosion: not a fireball, exactly, but an immense force that had torn at his flesh and hurled him into rock and concrete.

He opened his eyes.

Gray upholstery. The headliner of a car. Not his Range Rover or the Porsche or the Mercedes. It was a cheap headliner, synthetic, and there was far too much of it to be a stylish or sporty vehicle. He turned his head. His neck ached, his temples throbbed, and he saw broad doors and felt low-pile carpet beneath his cheek.

It was a minivan. He hated minivans. On the other hand, epic warriors rarely met their deaths in minivans.

“He’s awake.”

The voice was feminine and sweet, balm for his uncertain soul. Beth Carter. The little Druid who made good coffee.

“Miach,” he said. His voice was a ragged whisper.

“He’s gone back to Boston,” said Beth.

He couldn’t turn his head far enough to see her, but he thought she might be sitting in the passenger seat.

“Released me,” he croaked.

“Don’t try to talk,” said Beth. “You’ve got iron poisoning. There was iron dust in the explosion.”

That explained the pain. But not Miach’s absence, or why the sorcerer had released him.

“Water,” Elada croaked. He needed to be able to speak, to tell Conn of the Hundred Battles what he must do.

“We’ll be at the inn soon,” said Beth. “There’ll be water. And milk and honey.”