Лорел Гамильтон - A Kiss Of Shadows

My suitcase was one of the first to come sliding along the carousel. Galen picked it up. "Your chariot awaits, my lady."

I looked at him. If it had just been Galen, I might have believed it, but Barinthus wouldn't do the publicity stunts, and a chariot was definitely a stunt.

"Queen Andais sent her own personal car for you," Barinthus said.

I glanced from one to the other of them. "She sent the black coach of the wild hunt for me? Why?"

"Until dark this evening," Barinthus said, "it is merely a car, a limousine. And that your aunt offered it to you with me as your driver is a great honor that should not easily be dismissed."

I stepped in close to him and lowered my voice as if the waiting reporters could hear us. I couldn't keep calling magic to hide our words because, though I couldn't sense it, I couldn't be sure we weren't observed. "It's too great an honor, Barinthus. What's going on? I don't usually get the royal treatment from my relatives."

He looked down at me, silent so long I thought he wouldn't answer. "I do not know, Meredith," he said finally.

"We'll talk in the car," Galen said, smiling and waving for the reporters. He shepherded us out to the automatic doors. The limo was waiting like a sleek black shark. Even the windows were tinted black so that you could see nothing of what lay inside.

I stopped on the sidewalk. The two men walked past me, then stopped, looking back at me. "What's wrong?" Galen asked.

"Just wondering what might have crawled into the car while we were inside the airport."

They glanced at each other, then back to me. "The car was empty when we left it here," Galen said.

Barinthus was more practical. "I give my most solemn word that to my knowledge the car is empty."

I smiled at him, but it wasn't a happy smile. "You always were cautious."

"Let us say that I do not give my word on things that I cannot control."

"Like my aunt's whims," I said.

He gave a small bow that swirled his hair like a multihued curtain. "Indeed."

My aunt had chosen well. There were three times three times three royal bodyguards. Twenty-seven warriors dedicated to my aunt's every wish. Of those, the two I would have trusted most were standing beside me. Andais wanted me to feel secure. Why? My security or lack thereof had never interested her before. Barinthus's words came back to me. The queen wanted something from me, something only I could give her, or do for her, or for the court. The question was what was that one thing that only I could do? Off the top of my head, I couldn't think of a single thing that only I could give her.

"In the car, children," Galen said through smiling, gritted teeth. There was a television news van in the distance, caught in traffic but coming closer. If they pulled in and blocked our escape, which had happened in the past, we'd have other troubles than just my paranoia. No matter how well justified that paranoia happened to be.

Barinthus took keys out of his pocket and hit a button on the key chain. The trunk popped open with a hiss of escaping air like it was hermetically sealed. Galen put my suitcase in it and held his hand out for my carry-on bag.

I shook my head. "I'll keep this with me."

Galen didn't ask why—he knew, or could guess. I wouldn't have come home without more than the weapons I was carrying.

Barinthus held the rear door for me. "The news van will be here soon, Meredith. If we are to make a—how do they say? — clean getaway, we must do so now."

I took half a step toward that open door and stopped. The upholstery was black, everything was black. The car had too long a history not to ring every psychic bell I had. The power from that open door crept along my skin and raised the hair on my arms. It was the dark coach of the wild hunt, sometimes. Even if there were no tricks waiting inside it now, it was an object of wild power, and that power flowed over me.

"By the Lord and the Lady, Merry," Galen said. He moved past me and slid into the blackness of the car. He slid all the way in out of sight, then slid back out, holding his pale hand out to me. "It won't bite, Merry."

"Promise?" I said.

"Promise," he said, smiling.

I took his hand, and he drew me toward the open door. "Of course, I never promised that I wouldn't bite." He pulled me into the car, both of us laughing. It was good to be home.

THE LEATHER OF THE UPHOLSTERY SIGHED WITH AN ALMOST HUMAN sound as I settled back against the seat. A panel of black glass blocked our view of Barinthus. It was like being in a black space capsule. There was a cloth-wrapped bottle of wine in a silver bucket in a small compartment across from us. Two crystal glasses sat in holes meant to cradle them, waiting to be filled. There was a small tray of crackers and what looked like caviar behind the wine.

"Did you do this?" I asked.

Galen shook his head. "I wish I had, though I'd have known to leave out the caviar. Peasant taste buds."

"You don't like it either," I said.

"But I'm a peasant, too."

I shook my head. "Never."

He gave me his smile, the one that warmed me down to my socks. Then the smile faded. "I peeked in back before we drove off." He shrugged at my look. "I agree that the queen is acting strangely. I wanted to make sure there were no surprises behind all that black glass."

"And?" I said.

He picked up the wine. "And this was not here."

"You're sure?" I asked.

He nodded, sweeping the cloth aside enough to read the label on the wine. He gave a low whistle. "It's from her private stock." He held the bottle carefully for me because it had been opened so it could breathe. "Would you care to try some thousand-year-old burgundy?"

I shook my head. "I'm not eating or drinking anything that this car happened to put out for us. Thanks anyway." I patted the car's leather seat. "No offense meant."

"It could be the queen's gift," Galen said.

"An even better reason not to drink it," I said. "Not until I find out what's going on."

Galen looked at me, nodding, and put the wine back in the bucket. "Good point."

We settled back into the leather seats. The silence seemed heavier than it should have, as if someone were listening. I always thought it was the car that was listening.

The Black Coach is one of the objects among the fey that has an energy, a life, of its own. It was not created by any fey or ancient god that we knew of. It has simply existed for as long as anyone among us can remember. Six thousand years and counting. Of course, then it had been a black chariot pulled by four black horses. The horses were not sidhe horses. They didn't seem to exist at all until after dark. Then they were things of blackness with empty eye sockets that filled with leprous flame when they were hooked to the chariot.

It was a coach—a coach and four—by the time I saw it. One day, no one remembers just when, the chariot had vanished and a large black coach had appeared. Only the horses had remained the same. The coach had changed when chariots were no longer in use. It had updated itself.

Then one night not even twenty years ago the Black Coach had vanished and the limo had appeared. The horses never returned, but I've seen what passes for an engine under the hood of this thing. I swear that it burns with the same sickly fire that filled those horses' eyes. The car doesn't take gasoline. I have no idea what it runs on, but I know that chariot or coach or car sometimes vanishes all by itself. It'll drive away into the night on business of its own. The Black Coach had been a death portent, warning of impending doom. There were beginning to be tales of a sinister black car sitting across from a person's home with its engine running and green fire dancing along its surface, and then doom would fall on that person. So, forgive me if I was just a tad nervous riding in its oh-so-soft leather seats.