Лорел Гамильтон - A Stroke Of Midnight

“You think you can keep up, birdie?” Usna said.

She gave him a smile cold enough to freeze the smile from his face. “Don’t worry for me, kitty-cat, I won’t be the tail end of this race.”

Usna made a cat-like growl. “Remember who the predator is here, birdie.”

Her smiled widened, and filled her eyes with a fierce joy. “Me,” she said.

“Us,” Doyle said. “Keep her safe, Frost.”

“I will.”

“Oh, don’t mind me,” Rhys said. “I’m not fast enough to keep up, and apparently I can’t be trusted with the safety of the princess.”

“Help her with the humans, Rhys.” Doyle glanced at Cathbodua and Usna. “Are you prepared?”

Cathbodua said, “I am ready.”

Usna said, “Always.”

Doyle turned back to Biddy. “This may hurt.”

“Do it.” She braced herself, hands in the snow.

Doyle flexed his hands, so that they looked like black claws against the silver of her armor. Biddy let out a sharp breath. His magic flared even through the shields that I held in place to keep me from being overwhelmed by the magic of faerie. Her aura, her metaphysical armor, flared like a flash of light that covered her body. Doyle plunged his hands into that flare of light and came out with a round ball of light, but the light wasn’t the clean yellow-white light of Biddy’s aura, it was a dark sickly yellow with an edge of orange flame to it. Doyle cupped his hands more closely around it until the flickering of the orange flames spilled out from between his fingers.

He stood carefully, as if he held a very full bowl of very hot soup. He stepped around Biddy, and the other guards spilled away so that there was nothing between him and the mounds but empty snow.

Usna and Cathbodua moved up on either side of him. Usna undid his long cloak and stood dressed mostly in leather, his breath fogging in the cold, his face eager, eyes shining with anticipation. Cathboda’s face was like pale marble, perfect, beautiful, and cold. Far from flinging her cloak off, she gathered it more tightly around her. I realized that her breath did not fog in the cold. I had a moment to wonder why, then Doyle flung his hands skyward, and the flame was now a bird, a falcon made of red and orange flame. It flashed shining wings once, twice, to gain altitude. Doyle undid his long black cloak and let it fall to the snow. He undid his weapons and flung them all to the snow. The falcon beat its wings twice more and stared down at us all with eyes made of fire, an arrogant look, as if to say, “You will never catch me.” Then it was gone, streaking like some hand-sized comet, flaming into the night.

Doyle was simply gone. I know he ran, but it was like trying to watch darkness fall. You never really saw it happen. He was a tall dark shape, loping over the snow. Cathbodua was with him, though she didn’t seem to be running. It was almost as if the long feathered cloak floated above the snow, and she with it. Usna trailed them both, but not by much. His multicolored hair shone in the starlight, sparkling like colored snow, as he ran graceful and full out behind them.

“He has his work cut out for him,” Rhys said.

“Yes,” Frost said, “you cannot outrun the Darkness.”

“And anger travels on the very wind,” Dogmaela said.

“Anger?” I made it a question.

“She is the scald crow. She is the dissatisfaction that drives men to quarrel.”

“She starts the fight, then feeds on it,” Biddy said, as Nicca helped her to her feet.

“She did once,” Frost said, “but that is no more.”

“You think not,” Dogmaela said. “Cathbodua still enjoys a good quarrel, make no mistake about it, Killing Frost. She grows bored with so much peace.”

“This is not peace,” Frost said.

“Perhaps,” she said, “but it is not battle either.”

“Let’s hope not,” Rhys said. “And now, children, let’s go talk to the nice policemen before they freeze their badges off.”

“Badges?” Dogmaela said. “Is that some new slang for balls?”

Rhys grinned at her. “And when we walk over there they will all get their badges out and flash them at the princess.”

Frost and I both said “Rhys” at the same time.

Dogmaela said, “What an odd custom.”

She was a literalist with almost no sense of humor. Rhys was going to hurt himself with this one. I explained the truth to her as we all walked over to the parking lot. She gave him a dirty look. He smiled at her like a lascivious angel.

“Behave yourself,” I told him under my breath.

“I have behaved myself,” he said softly. “When you’ve talked to the head fed, you’ll think I was a saint.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s not bleeding.”

I looked at him and tried to decide if he was teasing me, too. His face said no. How bad could one FBI agent be? As the old saying goes, we were about to find out.

THE POLICE, ALL FLAVORS, STOOD IN THE DECEMBER COLD. Maybe some of them had been in their vehicles trying to stay warm and only got out when they saw us coming, but somehow they had the feel of people who’d been standing around in the cold for a while. If it wasn’t for us, then why weren’t they in their cars, in vans with the heaters on? Because their chiefs were standing out in the cold. You didn’t sit in a nice warm car while your officers stood ankle deep in snow. We’d had the parking area cleared off, but apparently snow had blown back across the surface.

I recognized Major Walters by the broad-shouldered square of him and his height. The man he was standing almost toe to toe with was shorter by at least five inches, and no one I knew. But I’d have bet good money he was FBI. And the way he was yelling at Walters, probably the head fed.

When I’d told Special Agent Raymond Gillett not to come, I hadn’t specified that he not send the feds. I would remember to be more specific if I ever spoke to him again.

Rhys tried to get their attention, but it was Frost’s voice that cut across the squabbling. “Princess Meredith NicEssus,” he announced, the words echoing over the cold, still air.

They stopped in midargument, and turned to us in surprise, almost as if they’d forgotten I was coming. Then they both started trying to talk to me at the same time.

I held up my hands, letting them slip out of the cloak. “Gentlemen, gentlemen, please, one at a time.”

They both tried to be the one at a time. I settled it for them. “Major Walters, why are you still here at the parking lot? Why haven’t you come to the door?” I smiled as I said it, even with my eyes.

He jerked a thumb at the smaller man. “He won’t let us step a foot off the parking lot. Says it’s federal land, and that makes this case his.”

I turned still smiling to the fed in question. “And you are?”

“Special Agent John Marquez.” And he actually bowed. “It’s an honor to meet you, Princess Meredith.”

I tried not to laugh. The bow was overdoing it. “I wish I could say the same, Special Agent Marquez.”

He looked up, puzzlement on his darkly handsome face. “Have we done something to offend you, Your Majesty?”

I shook my head. “Majesty is only for the ruler, and I’m not it, yet. I called Major Walters and asked him to bring down his people, but I did not call the FBI, so I’m a little puzzled why you are here.”

“Faerie land is federal land, Princess. That makes these crimes our jurisdiction, as I’ve pointed out to the major here.”

“Ah, but technically it’s faerie land, and neither of you has any jurisdiction here.”

Marquez smiled condescendingly. “But you called for police help, and since the mounds are on federal land, that means us.”