The Archer (The Blood Realm Series Book 3) (7 page)

“Oh, yes. My parents educated me about your kind, and all the other breeds of fey that infest this land.”

Metal grated against rough wood as Mac drew a small contraption from the broad shelf set high on the limestone wall. It clinked as it settled into his palm and he carefully separated the metal pieces and straightened the small leather straps. The
far darrig
feigned disinterest, but its gaze sharpened. One by one, Mac fastened the small straps to the hollowed iron, adorning each of his fingertips with a slightly curved claw.

A faint buzz hummed in his ears, like a lazy fly circling on an early autumn day. The sound was constant, annoying, and more than a little distracting if it went on for too long, but Mac did his best to ignore it for now. He needed the iron to make a point.

“A week ago, you were heard in a pub blubbering about a man in the forest who took all your gold. Said he was dressed entirely in green and armed with a bow. Called himself…Robin Hood.” He flexed his fingers, testing the fit of the straps, making certain the claws hugged his fingertips.

The
far darrig
snorted. “You think I’d let some forest rabble part me from my heard-earned money? You’re daft.”

Mac traced the first claw with the tip of his finger, appreciating the workmanship, the smooth, cold perfection of the man-made weapon. “Rumors. Hard to know when to trust them, isn’t it?”

“I should say so.”

“Always best to get confirmation, go straight to the source.”

“Always best.” The creature pointed at Mac with his pipe, the gnawed tip shiny with tobacco-scented saliva. “And I’m telling you, I was never robbed.”

Mac stepped closer to the fire, allowing the
far darrig
its first good look at the claws. The firelight glinted off the iron, the metal so dark it seemed to drink up the light, leave the room darker than it had been a moment ago. The
far darrig’s
eyes widened and he sucked harder on his pipe, but he remained seated, a forced calm crushing his shoulders.

“Tell me everything.” Mac’s words were soft, polite, but then, he didn’t need to sharpen them when he had five iron claws at the ready. The fey were so very vulnerable to iron. So wonderfully, completely vulnerable.

“Now, look.” The
far darrig
shifted in his seat, his gaze strained as he fought to look Mac in the eyes. “It’s true that the other night I might have gotten a better look at the bottom of the bottle than I should have, I’ll admit it. But I’m telling you—”

Mac struck. Four bright lines of red streaked across the fey’s left cheek, furrows left in the wake of his claws. His heart pounded with a burst of adrenaline, but he didn’t look at his iron creations and their fresh coat of blood, didn’t pause to savor the blow. What he felt now was only a shadow of what he’d once been, and he could never forget that.

“Tell me about Robin Hood.”

“
Sidhe
,” the
far darrig
spat, pipe nearly crushed in his white-knuckled grip. “He is
sidhe
. Seelie Court, though I doubt they state their claim too loudly these days. He’s a miserable rogue who thinks himself a dashing figure when in reality he is no more than a bastard son of a family who would sooner forget him than wish him a Merry Solstice.”

Mac strode to the wall beside the shelf that had held his macabre glove. A map hung there, the edges of the parchment dry and crumbling, the lines faded, but still clear enough to read. It was a topography map, a sketching of the forest with all its hills and valleys, all the hidden caves and rivers that speckled the land. He tapped the map with the back of one claw, careful not to damage the old parchment.

“Show me where you were robbed.”

“I will claim no robbery, bring no charges.” The fey’s body shook now, despite being so close to the fire. He poked himself in the side of the mouth with his pipe twice before managing to get his lips around it. “I want no attention from the
sidhe.
What they’d do to me, if they took it into their heads that I’d thrown mud at one of their own, is far worse than anything you could do to me.”

The challenge rolled through Mac’s mind, tempting him to show the
far darrig
just how creative a human could be in delivering punishment. A human who could handle iron with little ill effect, who could craft things from iron, perhaps even shoes that could be welded to— He blinked, pulled his thoughts from their wandering. “We’ll leave that for the moment. For now, all I want is his location. Your name need never be mentioned.”

More blood drained from the fey’s face, leaving his round nose protruding like a snowball that had hit its target and stuck. “The
sidhe
will know. They have spies everywhere.”

“You are not the only one who will be speaking with me this night. Tell me where Robin Hood found you or I will leave pieces of your body cooking in a pot over my fire while I interrogate the next miscreant.” As the words left his mouth, Mac tilted his head, intrigued by his own flash of inspiration. “As a matter of fact,” he said slowly, drawing one claw over his chin, “that would be a priceless motivation for the next—”

A cry that was half fury, half fear flew from the
far darrig’s
lips and he flung himself from his fireside seat. The cane he carried stabbed viciously at the solid floor of the cottage as he hobbled to the map. He raised the length of wood, swinging it through their air toward the map.

Iron claws struck the cane, catching it before it could make contact with the fragile parchment.

“This map is rather old,” Mac said, his voice a low growl. “And it was quite difficult to come by. A
softer
touch is required.”

The
far darrig
clenched his teeth, but nodded. He shuffled closer to the wall, eyes avoiding contact with the metal claws as he was forced to come closer. “There.” He pointed to the gathering of trees near the fork of a wide river that passed close to the edge of town. His finger trembled as if revealing the location of his mugging had made him a target, as though the thousands of spies he’d spoken of were now focused solely on him. “I can go now?”

Mac stared at the spot on the map, committing it to memory. “I will send for you again if I have more questions.”

The fey fled the room with more agility than he’d shown in the entirety of his stay in Mac’s cottage, his old bones apparently not so weary now that it was time to escape. Mac ignored him, focusing instead on the map lying across the thick wooden table in the center of the room. There was a matching map on the wall, sketched for him by one of the town’s more gifted artists. The one before him had pins to mark Robin Hood sightings, names inked to indicate who had spotted him and whether it had been one of Robin Hood’s victims or beneficiaries, and notes scribbled in the margins suggesting avenues of future research or possible inconsistencies.

Creaking sounds from beyond the door threatened his concentration, but Mac shut them out, staring at all the pins. Seven in all, a pathetic number. Robin Hood had many victims, but finding them and getting them to come forward… None of the fey wanted to admit they’d been robbed, either out of pride or out of fear of what Robin’s kin might do to them. And the beneficiaries were understandably hesitant to reveal that they’d received what they likely knew was stolen gold.

Mac gripped the edges of the table, the pads of his thumbs pressing into the cutlery-scarred surface. The buzzing in his ears grew louder, harder to shut out. The map blurred as his mind tried to follow a handful of tangents at once, always with the hum of the iron threatening to scatter his wits to the four corners.

Where are you, Robin Hood?

The door swung open, silent on well-oiled hinges, only the shift in the air giving it away. A brief clicking sound disturbed the silence of the room, then stopped. The weight of someone’s gaze fell on his back and he threw a glance over his shoulder.

A wolf stood just inside the doorway, firelight playing in its amber eyes, making them glow. It was larger than most, would likely rest its paws on his shoulders if it stood up. Silver grey fur covered its body, long enough to hang in a fringe past its well-fed, but still muscled belly. The faintest dusting of black fur around its ears and eyes and its ebony nose were the only things keeping the beast from appearing as if carved from pure silver, like some smithy’s creation come to life. Its nose glistened in the firelight as it tilted its head at Mac. “So we will be moving soon. To finer surroundings, Sienna tells me.”

The voice was masculine, smooth, and as clear as any human’s. It was the same voice the wolf had spoken with as a man, back when he’d been human. Before his seven years had started and his voice and form had been trapped in the body of a wolf.

Mac turned his focus back to his map. “Yes. Guy is dead. I will submit a formal claim on his property tomorrow.”

He slid his gaze over the curling black lines and spatters of dots that tattooed the map. The cartographer had promised it was one of the oldest to be had, that the hills, valleys, and rivers depicted on its face were the most accurate to be found—especially if one was interested in the hidden boughs and caves of the forest. Robin’s hiding place would be there somewhere. It had to be.

“And the woman’s land?”

His finger hovered over a spot where two pins lay close together. “Yes, the woman’s too. Now if you don’t mind, I am quite busy.”

The wolf trotted over to the table, large head tilting up, as it tried to see what he was working on. Its nose touched the edge of the parchment and Mac paused, a new thought making itself heard over the buzz of the metal.

“The woman—Marian. Do you know her?”

Ca—no, the wolf. Mac had to think of him as the wolf. It, not him. Thinking of the wolf by his human name, thinking of him as a he, could lead to a slip of the tongue. The wrong word in front of the wrong person could lead to disaster for all of them. The wolf rose onto its hind legs and settled its front paws on the table.

“Not beyond following her as you asked. She hunts more than is common, and certainly shows more skill for it than you'd usually find among women of her status. None of that nonsense with beaters or hounds. But beyond confirming that she does have a temper and she does—did—hate Guy, I never saw much cause to inspect her more carefully.”

“You’ve gotten close though. Smelled her?”

The fur around the wolf’s eye rose slightly, the lupine arching of an eyebrow. “Yes, I’ve smelled her. This body has a disgustingly overdeveloped sense of smell. I’ve smelled every object and person on the entire island —”

“And does she smell human?”

Another furry eyebrow arched, this time paired with a huff of breath through its nose at being interrupted. “She smells of rosemary. A lot of rosemary. So much rosemary, that to be anywhere near her has me sneezing for hours after.”

“But you don’t smell anything else, anything that would make you think she was something other, something not human?”

“No.”

Mac drummed his fingers on the table. “There’s something off about that woman. I just can’t put my finger on it.”

“You mean your claw.”

The wolf gestured with its nose, pointedly eyeing his hand. He clenched his fingers into a fist, the urge to swipe out with his “claws” tingling in his muscle’s memory.

“If your nose is so keen, perhaps you could tell me why you can’t find Robin Hood?”

“The
sidhe
wears glamour more often than his own face—and he includes a new scent with every new glamour. He leaves no trail. Indeed, I’m not certain I would know which scent was truly his if I smelled it.” The wolf narrowed its amber eyes. “As well you should know.”

A scathing retort leapt to Mac’s tongue, but before he could let it fly, the wolf spoke again.

“How did Guy meet his end?”

The change in subject let some of the pressure off Mac’s anger, like the lid being lifted from a pot left too long over the fire. He straightened, pressing his fingertips lightly against the table’s surface.

“Marian killed him. Guy finally pushed her too far.”

The wolf waited silently for a long minute, but if it was waiting for Mac to offer any more information, it had a long wait.

The Cassidys paid their back taxes last week. Perhaps their sudden windfall has more to do with our green bandit than a bountiful harvest?
He scribbled a brief note in the border of the map.

“Good fortune that you happened to be there when it happened.”

Mac frowned at the wolf, mentally backtracking to put that comment into context. “There was no fortune involved. I was there because I planned to be there. Guy had been salivating over that woman for years, always going on about getting her into his bed—and always with his usual lack of couth. It was only a matter of time before she killed him and it was easy enough to plant the idea in his mind that his efforts might bear fruit if he were to incorporate a legal angle. Of course since he lacked any connection to authority beyond myself, it was only natural that he would arrange for me to be on hand when he finally confronted her.”

“You set him up.”

“Yes.”

“And you just watched her shoot him. Our cousin.”

“Your attempt to shame me would have more weight if you had not said yourself on more than one occasion that Guy would be worth more to us dead than alive. Even as a wolf, he was no more than a glutton, eating indiscriminately according to his own sadistic whims. That farmer’s wife he went after was nearly the undoing of this entire family.”

The wolf neatly avoided his gaze by leaning forward to put its nose closer to the map. “More of your obsession with Robin Hood?”

“It is not an obsession.” Mac planted a hand on the wolf’s furred chest and shoved, curling his lip as it flailed and twisted its body in an attempt to regain its balance. Its efforts were unsuccessful and it hit the floor on its side, its breath leaving it in a great whoosh. “Robin Hood is symbolic of everything that is wrong with this county. Flitting about with his little band, taking and giving with no respect for law and order. Even his queen has given up trying to control him. He answers to no one.” He gripped the table again, metal claws digging fresh grooves into the wood. “Well, he will answer to me.”