Patricia Briggs - Hunting Ground

Tom looked down at Dana’s body. “Just so,” he said. “Though I don’t know that anyone expected exactly this result.”

THE troll, in his guise as a street person, was waiting for them just outside the door. He was leaning against the boat, smoking a cigarette and watching his feet.

Tom stepped in front of Anna.

“Well,” said the troll, soft-voiced. “I guess that showed ’em. Wasn’t no one thought ye had it in ye, Lady. Most especially that one.” He tilted his head at the boat.

“She was going to kill my mate.”

The troll nodded. “And yourself, too, sounded like. She should have knowed that some people take things like the killing of mates right to heart, all right.” He stubbed the cigarette out on his thumb and tossed it into the water. “I’m supposed to take possession of the-”

Anna stepped around Tom and held out the dagger in one hand and the sword in the other.

“They aren’t mine,” she said. “I don’t want them.”

The troll stepped back, then had to do some fancy footwork to keep from falling in the water. “Don’t you be wishing those on me. Don’t you. I’m supposed to take possession of the body. We’ll see to it Ms. Dana Shea doesn’t get discovered.” He seemed calmer once Anna let her hands drop and quit holding out the weaponry. “That’s better, there see. Now I’m supposed to ask you to watch over those a little bit longer. Someone will be along to collect them later. Someone else.” And just in case she hadn’t gotten it, he said. “Someone not me.”

“All right,” Anna said. “Agreed.”

He pulled off the old trench coat he was wearing. “Happen you might want to bundle things up in here. It’ll keep ’em out of sight-a little magic… and a lot of material.”

She bit back a thank-you. Tom, who took the coat, didn’t seem to have the same trouble.

“I’ll see that the coat goes to whoever gets the weapons,” Tom said instead. “Maybe they can return it.”

The troll nodded once and went into the boat.

“Troll,” said Tom thoughtfully, and knocked twice on the side of the boat with his knuckles. “I don’t suppose I needed to cut the head off, after all. Bon appetit.”

THEY were maybe halfway back, although Anna was stumbling tired, so her estimate of distance could have been way off, when she noticed an expensive but anonymous car purring at a junction between the path they were on and a cross street.

“I see it,” said Tom, moving between her and the car.

Very conscious of what she was carrying, Anna didn’t protest. She didn’t want the sword-but there were a lot of people she didn’t want to have the sword either. Like the vampire who’d gotten away.

She dropped back a dozen feet and let Tom take the lead. If only the sword had been a gun. She knew how to use a gun.

The back door of the car opened and Bran got out.

Tom didn’t look relieved. So Anna broke into what was supposed to be a run but came out as a faster shuffle. “It’s good, it’s good. Tom, meet Bran Cornick, the Marrok. Bran, this is Tom. I don’t remember his last name, but he saved my life.”

“Tom Franklin,” Bran said. “Thank you. Anna…” He shook his head. “Words fail me.”

“Here.” She shoved the coat with sword and dagger at Bran. “ You take these. I don’t want them. Someone is supposed to come pick them up later.”

“Ah,” he said, and looked down at the battered material. “Seattle is not the place I would have expected to encounter these.” He seemed to know what he held even though they were both still wrapped up.

Tom grinned. “Seattle is a city with a certain… panache . Never know what you are going to find when you come for a visit. Good food, friendly people, ancient legendary weapons. Always something different.”

“Get in the car,” Bran told them. “They’re all on the way to Angus’s house.”

“Charles?” Anna couldn’t help but sound anxious.

“He wanted to come with me,” Bran said. “But I told him he’d have to wait until he could walk under his own power. He’s on his way to Angus’s if he’s not already there.” He got in the car, and Anna slid in next to him, leaving the window seat for Tom.

Bran gave her a laughing glance. “He wasn’t happy with me. Or you either. Expect him to yell at you because you scared him badly this time.”

“Sounds unfair, to me,” Anna said, though it didn’t bother her. “I risk my neck to save him, and he yells at me.” Charles was alive, he could yell at her all he wanted to.

“If it gets to you, just shed a few tears,” muttered Tom. “He’ll shut up. Works for Moira.”

“Arthur’s dead, Dana is dead. Five of the six vampires are dead,” Anna said. “There’s only one villain left.”

“We don’t have to worry about the vampire who escaped,” Bran told her. “The local vampires found him and took care of it. They are apparently sending Angus proof.”

“Good,” said Tom.

“Good” was the wrong word, Anna thought. “Good” shouldn’t apply to headless bodies and dead people. But she didn’t have a better word.

Anna had to ask. “Bran? Could you have done anything to stop the fae from killing Charles? Should I have waited for you?” Did I just kill unnecessarily?

He must have heard her unspoken worry. “In human courts, the least of the charges facing Dana would have been conspiracy to commit murder. Charles confirms that she knew Arthur planned on killing Sunny. Jean Chastel. Charles. She was in the process of killing Charles. That’s attempted murder.” He shook his head. “Do not regret her death.”

“She was the Lady of the Lake,” Anna said in a small voice.

“And being famous should have made her immune to the consequences of her actions?”

He pulled her head toward him and kissed her forehead. “ Ego te absolvo. There is some Latin for you, my dear. I absolve you of your guilt. You did well. The only way I could have stopped her was the same way you did. And I would have been too late.”

“De duobus malis, minus est semper eligendum,” she murmured. “Her death was the lesser evil.”

CHARLES sat in lone splendor on a huge couch in the middle of Angus’s spacious living room-while the other ten or twelve people present made themselves at home on the other side of the room.

Anna surveyed the scene. “Okay,” she said. “Who’s been being a grouch.”

He looked at her. For such a look, she thought, she’d have done a lot more than kill. He patted the couch beside him, but she crawled into his lap instead.

“I’ve had a really bad night,” she said. “Any chance we can get some sleep?”

Charles kissed her, a long, involved kiss that took no prisoners. When he was finished, she licked her lips, and said, in a voice that was a little breathless, “Does that mean no?”

“I would slay dragons for you,” he told her. “I suspect that finding an unoccupied bedroom will be easier.”

She pulled away a little, just far enough that she could see his face. “Dragons, huh. Well, I killed the Lady of the Lake for you, sir.”

He cupped her face in his hands, “I’m sorry, Anna.”

Te absolve, indeed, she thought. Faced with Charles’s warm and undeniably living flesh, she would have killed the fae over again. “I’m not,” she said. “I love you.”

Angus sighed. “Lovebirds,” he said.

Until she learned to read, Patricia Briggs lived a mundane's life in Butte, Montana. Shortly after her sixth birthday, she discovered there were dwarves living in the mines and elves in the forests. The hob in the garage really startled her the first time she met him, but they've been good friends ever since. The urge to share her discoveries with the rest of the world led her to writing. She currently resides in the Pacific Northwest.