Лорел Гамильтон - A Kiss Of Shadows

There were people gathering on the sidewalks, people getting out of their cars, standing in the open doors. There were two police cars parked in the middle of the intersection, stopping the traffic that was still trying to drive on the cross street. The lights on the police cars cut the night in splashes of colored light, competing with the signs and lighted windows of the businesses and clubs that were on either side of the street. I could hear the wail of an ambulance coming closer, probably what the police were clearing the traffic for.

I searched the crowd with my eyes, and there was nothing unusual to see. I cast out with that other sense. I'd be limited with Uther's energy leaking all over me, but not completely helpless. I might be able to spot how close they were before I revealed myself.

The air wavered two cars ahead of us, like a ripple of heat, except it wasn't heat, and you never got that effect after dark. Something large was moving between the cars, something that didn't want to be seen. I cast out farther and found three more ripples. "Four shapes moving out there, all bigger than a human. Closest one is only two cars up from us."

"Can you see shapes?" Jeremy asked.

"No, just ripples."

"To be able to hold glamour in place when you're tipping over cars is more than most fey can manage," Jeremy said.

Apparently, none of us believed the first car had gotten on its roof by itself. "Even most of the sidhe couldn't do it, but some of them can."

"So four larger than human, and at least one sidhe close by," Uther said.

"Yes."

"What's the plan?" Ringo asked.

A good question that. Unfortunately, I didn't have a good answer. "We've got four policemen at the intersection. Are they going to be a help or a hindrance?"

"If we could break their glamour, make them visible to the police, and they didn't know it right away… " Jeremy said.

"If they did something harmful in full sight of the police… " I said.

"Merry, my girl, I think you've grasped my plan."

Ringo looked back at me. "I don't know much about sidhe magic, but if Merry isn't a full-blooded one, is she powerful enough to break their glamour?"

They all looked at me. "Well?" Jeremy said.

"We don't have to break the spell. All we have to do is overload it," I said.

"We're listening," Jeremy said.

"The first car was turned over, but the rest just crashed. They're peering in the cars, looking for me but not touching anyone. If we get out and fight them, the sidhe won't be able to keep them unseen."

"I thought we wanted to avoid a direct fight if possible," Ringo said.

The ripple was almost here. "If anyone's got a better idea, you've got about sixty seconds to share it. We're about to be searched."

"Hide," Uther said.

"What?"

"Merry hides," he said.

It was a good idea. I slipped behind the secondary seats, and Uther moved away from the wall just enough for me to worm behind him. I didn't think it would work, but it was better than nothing. We could fight later if they found me, but if I could hide… I pressed myself against the cool metal wall and Uther's warm back and tried not to think too hard. Some sidhe can hear you thinking if you're agitated enough. I was completely hidden from sight. Even if they opened the big sliding door, which I didn't think they would risk, they wouldn't see me. But it wasn't really their eyes I was worried about. There are all types of fey, and not all of them have a human's reliance on their vision. That wasn't even counting the sidhe who was doing the glamour. If we were the only car with fey occupants, the sidhe would come to investigate before they left this area. He, or she, would have to see for themselves.

I wanted badly to watch that wavering in the air peer in all the windows. But that would have defeated the purpose of hiding, so I crouched behind Uther and tried to be very still. I heard, felt, something brush against the metal wall at my back. Something large was pressed against the metal. Then I heard it, a loud sniffing like of some gigantic hound.

I had a heartbeat to think, "It smells me," then something smashed through the metal inches from me. I screamed, scrambling out from behind Uther, before my mind had fully registered the fist, large as my head, stuck through the side of the van.

A sound of shattering glass whirled me around. An arm big as a tree trunk and a chest wider than the car window was pressed through the driver's-side window. Ringo beat at the arm, but it grabbed the front of his shirt and started pulling him through the broken window.

The gun was in my hand but there wasn't a clear shot. Jeremy moved across the seats, and I saw the flash of a blade in his hand.

Metal screamed as giant fists pulled the side of the van apart until a huge leering face peered into the hole. He looked past Uther like he wasn't there, yellow eyes on me. "Princess," the ogre hissed, "we've been looking for you."

Uther smashed his fist into the huge face. Blood sprayed from the ogre's nose, and the face fell back from the hole. There were screams from outside, human screams. The glamour had collapsed under the violence. The ogres had simply appeared to the humans like magic. I heard a man's voice yelling, "Police, stop where you are!"

The police were coming. Yeah. I put the gun back in my waistband. I didn't want to explain it.

I turned back to the front seat. Ringo was still in the driver's seat. Jeremy was leaning over him, and there was blood on his hands. I moved through the middle seats to them. I started to ask if Ringo was hurt, but the moment I saw his chest, I didn't have to ask. The front of his shirt was soaked with blood, a piece of glass as wide as my hand stuck out of his chest.

"Ringo," I said his name softly.

"Sorry," he said, "I'm not going to be much help to you." He coughed, and I could see it hurt.

I touched his face. "Don't talk."

I could hear the police talking to the ogres, telling them things like, "Hands on top of your heads! On your knees! Don't fucking move!" Then I heard another man's voice, a smooth masculine voice, with just a touch of accent. I knew the voice.

I scrambled to the big sliding door, while Jeremy was still saying, "What? What is it?"

"Sholto," I said.

His face remained puzzled. The name meant nothing to him.

I tried again. "Sholto, Lord of That Which Passes Between, Lord of Shadows, King of the Sluagh."

It was the last title that widened his eyes, and drove fear sharp in his face. "Oh my God," he said.

Uther said, "Shadowspawn is here?"

I glanced at him. "Never say that to his face." I could hear the voices through the broken window, so very clearly. I felt like I was moving in slow motion. The door didn't want to open, or I'd grown clumsy with fear.

That voice was saying, "Thank you so much, Officers."

"We'll wait for transport for the ogres," the policeman said.

The door slid open and I had a frozen moment to see everything. Three of the ogres were on their knees on the sidewalk, hands clasped on their heads. Two policemen had their guns out. One officer was on the sidewalk in front of the ogres; the other one, separated from them by the line of parked cars. A tall figure, though only human tall, stood by the cars and that policeman. The figure was dressed in a grey leather trench coat with his white hair trailing down the back of it. The last time I'd seen Sholto, he'd been wearing a grey cloak, but the effect was surprisingly similar as he turned, as if he felt me standing there. Even from yards away in the electric-kissed darkness I could see that his eyes were three different shades of gold: metallic gold around the pupil, then amber, and last a circle the color of yellow autumn leaves. I was afraid of Sholto, always had been, but when I saw those eyes, I realized how homesick I was for the sidhe, because for a second, I was glad to see another person with a triple iris. Then the look in those familiar eyes sent a chill across my neck and the moment of connectedness was gone.