Chimes at Midnight Page 24

  “Wait wait wait,” said Danny. “Why am I grabbing the kid? No offense, but I should be grabbing you.”

  “Because you, and me, we can see where we’re going. Quentin can’t.” I shook my head. “He hides us, we run, we find people. Once we find people, we know we’re outside the bounds of this ambush. You carry Quentin back to the you-know-where,” I was suddenly unwilling to say the word “bookstore” aloud, “and I’ll meet you there.”

  “I don’t like this plan,” said Danny.

  “I hate this plan,” said Quentin.

  “Well, then, it’s a damn good thing I’m in charge, since this is the only plan that’s getting us inside without telling the Queen where we’re going,” I half-snapped. “Now cast the hide-and-seek. We need to get moving.”

  Quentin sighed. Then he raised his hands, waving them through the air like he was conducting an unseen orchestra, and sang, in a clear, high tenor, “Oh, my name is Captain Kidd, as I sailed, as I sailed, my name is Captain Kidd, as I sailed . . .”

  I couldn’t smell his magic, but I felt a prickling sensation run across my skin as the spell was cast, causing the small hairs on my arms and the back of my neck to stand on end. Quentin lowered his hands. I looked at him. He nodded.

  “All right,” I said. “See you there.”

  Then I turned, and sprinted for the end of the block, still in the middle of the street.

  Hide-and-seek spells primarily depend on one thing: the person you’re trying to hide from losing sight of you. We hadn’t exactly been subtle as we stood on Valencia Street and argued about our next move, but we also hadn’t been moving. It was my sincere hope that our sudden action would be confusing enough to give us a few seconds’ head start. That, and I really, really hoped the Queen hadn’t sent any Centaurs. I’m pretty good at running for my life—I’ve had a lot of practice, when you get right down to it—but there’s no way I could outrun someone with four legs and lungs sized to sustain most of a horse’s body. A Silene, maybe. A Centaur, no way.

  As I ran, I dug my phone out of my pocket and started scrolling through my contacts with my thumb. Why did I have to know so many people? It was like having a cell phone made people you hadn’t talked to in years come out of the woodwork, demanding you care enough to keep their information handy. I decided I’d delete them all as soon as this was over, and pressed “call” as the list finally reached the name I’d been looking for.

  There were cars on the block up ahead. I veered back onto the sidewalk, listening to the phone ringing in my ear. “Come on, pick up,” I gasped, already too winded to do much else. “Come on, come on . . .”

  “Hello?”

  “May!” I swerved to avoid running into a fire hydrant. “Is Jazz there?”

  “Toby? Are you running or something? You sound like you can’t breathe.”

  “That’s because I’m running! Is Jazz there?”

  “Yeah, she’s—”

  “Tell her I need her, and the flock, to mob at Valencia and 16th Street. Now.”

  “Toby, what—”

  “I’m being chased by an unknown number of people,” I swerved to avoid a bike chained to a bike rack, with no owner in sight, “and I’m not sure how long I can keep running. I need a mob.”

  “On it,” said May, and hung up.

  That would have to be good enough. Hoping Jazz could actually rouse the rest of the city’s Raven-maids and Raven-men before I had passed the intersection, I put the phone back in my pocket, put my head down, and ran.

  This is how it is with me and exercise: I have to exert myself, I get winded, I complain about getting winded, I swear I’m going to get into shape, I get distracted, and it never happens. Developing a supernaturally-enhanced healing talent didn’t help, since it meant I no longer had to worry as much about outrunning gunshots. So I wasn’t in the best shape, endurance-wise, before the goblin fruit caused my body to shift me most of the way back toward human. I was moving on momentum and terror, plain and simple, and as soon as one of them gave out, I was going to be in a world of trouble.

  It was a good thing I was semi-invisible at the moment, since I knew how strange I would have looked to anyone who could see me: just a woman, running pell-mell down the empty sidewalk, with no one visibly in pursuit. I wanted to stop. My lungs were burning, and my knees had started to ache—a pain from my more mortal days that I’d been more than happy to forget about. The landscape was on my side for the moment, presenting me with a gentle downward slope, but once I crossed 16th, that would stop. If Jazz and the Ravens didn’t meet me there, I’d be running uphill.

  Come on, Jazz, I prayed, as I dug deep for one more burst of short-lived speed. I know you can do this. I believe you can do this. So come on, and prove me right. Please.

  My next stride hit the sidewalk just a little bit wrong, and I lost my balance, going head over heels before landing in a painful heap against the base of a nearby wall. Spots danced in front of my eyes. I tried to roll to the side, and found myself looking at a series of koi silhouettes that someone had painted on the sidewalk and building. I laughed, and then groaned as it made my head ache even more.

  For the first time, I heard footsteps behind me. I tried squinting in their direction, but there was nothing there, and I realized that the feeling of feather-light feet dancing over my collarbone was gone. I raised a hand and touched my chest, confirming what I already partially knew: the firefly was gone. Either the flight or the fall had dislodged it.

  “Then there were seven,” I muttered, pulling myself inch by aching inch to my feet. The knees of my jeans were ripped out, and the smell of blood was thick in the air. Good. I raised one scraped palm to my mouth and ran my tongue across it, borrowing what strength I could from my own blood before I snapped, “Well? What are you assholes waiting for? Come on!”

  The Queen’s guards stepped out of thin air.

  There were five of them, all dressed in the Queen’s livery, all armed. They had to be allowing me to see them through some sort of selective don’t-look-here; those weapons weren’t street-legal, and it wasn’t like I had the power to see through illusions on my own. The figure at the center of the group was a Gwragen, eyes closed and mouth moving in some silent litany as she maintained the spell that was keeping them concealed and keeping the mortal population at bay.

  “You’re going to have one hell of a headache in the morning,” I wheezed, and licked my hand again. Despite the bits of gravel and dirt embedded in the skin, the blood tasted good.

  “October Daye, you are under arrest—” began one of the guards, a broad-shouldered Satyr with holes cut in his helmet to allow his horns to curl through.

  “Sir,” I said, interrupting him.

  He stopped, frowning at me. “What?”

  “Sir,” I repeated. “If you’re going to arrest me, you’re going to use my proper title. Can’t you people remember your own procedures? I mean, come on.”

  He stiffened, lips drawing into a scowl. I wasn’t making any friends with my attitude. But I never do, where the Queen’s men are concerned, and all I needed was enough time for Danny and Quentin to get away from whoever might have followed them. Once they were safe, I could get arrested as much as I wanted to.

  “Sir October Daye,” he began, “you are under arrest—”

  A vast flock of black-winged birds descended from the sky, talons clawing and wings beating wildly as they mobbed the Queen’s guards. In a matter of seconds, inky feathers had obscured them from my view.

  I wasn’t up for running—my running had been used up somewhere between 18th Street and taking a header into the sidewalk—but I was fully equipped to limp laboriously away. The beauty of the hide-and-seek is that you don’t have to go all that far. I stopped on the opposite corner, watching with some satisfaction as Jazz and her flock did their best to recreate The Birds with the Queen’s guard. As for the guards, they held their positions for almost a minute, which is longer than I could have done. Then they turned and ran, with
the ravens in hot pursuit.

  One large raven stayed behind, fluttering down to land in the street. It picked its way through the fallen feathers, head bobbing. It cawed, an inquisitive sound. I smiled a little. The raven was Jazz, more than likely, and it—she—couldn’t see me. The hide-and-seek was holding.

  “Open roads,” I whispered, too softly to be heard, before I pulled the flask out of my jacket and freed another firefly, setting this one on my neck, where it would be hidden by my hair. Once that was done and the flask was put away again, I turned and began limping back up the street toward Borderlands. The fading sound of wings and shouting told me I was moving away from the Queen’s guards. That was good. I really didn’t have a second encounter in me.

  It took three times as long to walk the few blocks between me and Borderlands as it had when I was running and—oh, yeah—uninjured. Still, eventually, I found myself in front of the bookstore’s closed screen door. I peered through the window. Danny and Quentin were already inside, looking profoundly uncomfortable as they pretended to browse the bookshelves. The dark-haired woman with the red kerchief was behind the counter, handing a book to a woman in a white peasant blouse. Her hair was an odd shade of silvery-red, like red gold. Neither of them seemed to realize there was anyone else in the store. The hide-and-seek was holding.

  The redhead turned to leave. I stepped out of the way, letting her open the door for me. I might be hidden by Quentin’s illusion, but that was no reason to push my luck by making the woman in the kerchief—Jude, that was her name—deal with a door that was opening on its own.

  As the redhead stepped out of the store, I stepped in. Danny turned toward me. Quentin and Jude didn’t. I blinked, impressed. The hide-and-seek was clearly better than I’d thought.

  Interacting with someone will enable them to see you, illusions or not. I walked over and put a hand on Quentin’s elbow, squeezing when he started to jump. “It’s me,” I said. “Breathe.”

  He exhaled. “Toby.”

  “Come on.” I gestured for Danny to follow as I led Quentin toward the door leading to the basement. If Arden was here, and hiding, she would be in the makeshift apartment that she’d been sharing with her brother. It was the safest place for her.

  Jude didn’t look up as we opened the door and started down, shrouded by the hide-and-seek spell. Once the door was closed behind us, I murmured, “Let it go,” to Quentin.

  He released the spell with a sigh of relief. “Ow,” he said. There was a pause, presumably while he got a good look at me. I couldn’t see his face in the dark, but I knew the hole that assessing someone’s injuries could make in a conversation. “Toby? What happened?”

  “I think I need a Band-Aid, an icepack, and some new knees,” I said. “Danny, get the lights?”

  “Sure thing,” Danny rumbled.

  The light clicked on, flooding the basement with light—and revealing the man from the café next door, the one who had served us our coffee. He was wearing another black T-shirt, this one with the Borderlands logo, and holding a crossbow, which was aimed squarely at my chest.

  “Hi,” he said, with another tooth-baring smile. “I wondered when you’d get here.”

  Crap.

  TWENTY

  THE STAIRWAY WAS NARROW ENOUGH that there was no way Danny could put himself between me and the arrow without both of us plummeting to the basement floor below. That might have been all right a week ago, but as things stood, either he’d land on me—bad—or I’d land on him—almost as bad, since Bridge Trolls aren’t exactly a soft surface. I raised my hands, trying to show that I wasn’t a threat.

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m—”

  “I know who you are.” He snorted. “You take your coffee black, and you have no respect for the beans. You shouldn’t gulp it like that. It’s wasteful.” His eyes narrowed. “I don’t know them, though. Troll and Daoine? And you. You didn’t smell right before, and you smell even less right now. You smell like blood and mistakes. What are you?”

  I raised a hand to touch the firefly hidden in my hair, trying to force my eyes to focus. A glimmer appeared around him, marking the boundaries of a human disguise. “What are you?” I countered. “I don’t know you.”

  “I’m Madden,” he said. “I sold you coffee. Remember?”

  He sounded so offended by the idea that I’d forgotten him that it was all I could do not to laugh, despite the absurdity of the situation. “That’s not what I meant,” I said. “I meant . . . my name is October Daye. I’m a changeling. These are my friends, Danny and Quentin.”

  “Hey,” said Danny.

  “Hello,” said Quentin.

  “You smelled stronger before,” said Madden.

  “It’s been a strange week,” I said. “Now please . . . what are you? How could you tell . . . ?”

  “Oh!” Madden snorted again before aiming his crossbow at the ceiling. He waggled the fingers on his free hand, and the illusion around him burst like a soap bubble.

  The change to his features was subtle. His nose seemed to broaden across the arch and square at the bottom; his eyes grew rounder and took on a golden cast, more wolfish than the honey-gold of the Torquills. The more dramatic change was in his hair, which went from gold to platinum blonde, streaked randomly with blood red. I blinked, and then relaxed.

  “Cu Sidhe,” I said. “That’s why you didn’t say anything before. You didn’t want to get into a fight with my companion.” Cu Sidhe—the faerie dogs—have been fighting with the Cait Sidhe since the beginning of Faerie. Anyone who’s ever lived with a cat and a dog at the same time knows that most of the clichés about “fighting like cats and dogs” don’t really apply. The same can’t be said for the Cu Sidhe and the Cait Sidhe. They’ve never gotten along. Faerie didn’t make them that way.

  Madden shrugged sheepishly. “I’m not supposed to fight while I’m at work. Alan looks all disappointed and talks about needing to let me go if I can’t mind my temper, and then Arden has to work on him until he changes his mind. She doesn’t like doing that. I don’t like it when she has to. So even when cats come in, I don’t bark. It’s not allowed.”

  “That . . . makes a surprising amount of sense, as long as I don’t think about it too hard.” I lowered my hands, waiting for him to jerk the crossbow back into position. He didn’t move. “My friends and I are here—”

  “I know why you’re here,” he said, frowning. There was something uncomfortable about being frowned at by a Cu Sidhe. It was like I’d managed to disappoint the universe. “Arden doesn’t want you.”

  “This is why I could never date a dog,” I muttered. More loudly, I said, “I know she’s upset, but is she here? We need to talk to her. It’s important.”

  There were two steps between me and Danny. Just enough for a body to wedge itself between us. Something sharp was jammed against my back, right over the spot where I judged my kidneys would be located.

  “What the fu—”

  Danny’s exclamation was cut off by Arden saying softly in my ear, “If he squeezes, I see how far into you I can jam this before I stop breathing. I bet it’s pretty far. What do you think?”

  “Danny, whatever part of her you have, let go of it,” I said. I didn’t try to turn. The situation was fairly self-apparent, considering the parties involved. I just hoped Arden wouldn’t shove whatever she was holding into something I was going to need later before she gave me a chance to explain.

  “The bitch has a knife,” said Danny.

  “Yeah, and the knife is at my kidneys, so let her go,” I said. “It’ll be okay.”

  “Will it?” snarled Arden. “Let’s ask Nolan, shall we? Oh, wait. We can’t.”

  “That’s what I’m here about,” I said. “Can we sit down and talk about this like civilized people, instead of standing here and talking about it like people who use knives to get what they want? Please?”

  “Hi, Arden,” said Madden happily. “I found the people you said might be coming. Well. I found the person.�
� His smile died, short-lived, replaced by confusion. “Two of them aren’t who you asked for. Is that okay? Did I do okay?”

  “You did great,” said Arden, with a note of affectionate praise that couldn’t have been faked, even if it was a little forced. I guess “good dog” didn’t come naturally in a situation like this one.

  “Yay.” Madden seemed to remember that he was holding a crossbow; he swung it back down to aim at me.

  “There’s a knife at my back,” I said flatly. “I don’t think that’s necessary right now.”

  “Better safe than sorry,” said Madden.

  “Where is my brother?” demanded Arden.

  “That’s why we’re here,” I said. “Please, can we just sit down? We just want to talk. I swear, we’re not here to cause any trouble.”

  “Drop the disguise.” Her voice was cold. “I want to see what kind of weapons you’re hiding under there.”

  “Drop the . . . oh. Oh, right.” The last time I’d seen Arden had been before the pie, and before I’d turned myself mostly human. “I know this is going to be hard to believe, but I’m not wearing a disguise right now, Arden. This is just me.” I gestured toward Madden, and promptly regretted it, as she dug the point of her knife a little deeper. “I’m serious. Ask him what I smell like.”

  “Madden?” she asked, suspiciously.

  “She’s human,” said Madden. He paused before adding, “Well, mostly, sort of. She smells like people, and like something I don’t know, and like blood, and like goblin fruit.”

  “What?” Arden pushed me away from her, sending me stumbling down the stairs toward Madden. That wasn’t a good move on her part. I’d barely gone two steps when she made an outraged squeaking noise. I turned to see Danny’s hand wrapped around her head, all but obscuring her face. More importantly, it was blocking her eyes. A Tuatha de Dannan who can’t see is a Tuatha who can’t teleport. Arden clawed at his hands, still squeaking.