Seanan McGuire - Ashes of Honor

He hit the gas as soon as he saw that we were “gone,” accelerating toward the street up ahead. He must have thought he could catch up with us. I watched intently as he blew by. For one second, I had a clear view of his face. I froze.

It was Officer Thornton from the SFPD.

“What the fuck is he doing here?” I whispered.

“Toby?”

I shook my head, looking back to Quentin. “That guy was one of the officers on duty when I got picked up the other night.”

Quentin frowned. “Why would he be following us now? And to Fremont?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea. But I do know one thing.” I started the car again. “I really, really need a cup of coffee.”

Getting food was complicated by the fact that with the hide-and-seek spell on the car, we couldn’t use the drive-through. I eventually had Quentin wait in the car with the Luidaeg’s still-glowing charm while I ran into the McDonalds for a sack of cheeseburgers, fries, and faux-apple pies. He got a soda large enough to qualify as a health hazard. I got a coffee large enough that I was in no position to throw stones. Officer Thornton was still nowhere to be seen when I returned to the car, handed Quentin his share of lunch, and got back on the road.

The drive to Fremont is boring under most circumstances. The roads are wide and reasonably well maintained—by California standards, anyway—and you don’t usually encounter people driving like complete idiots. That changes when you’re trying to eat lunch, drive an invisible car, and follow the directions of a magical snow globe at the same time. We nearly got sideswiped by a semi, and several single-passenger vehicles tried to merge, not into us, but close enough that I wasn’t comfortable. I wound up drinking my coffee through Quentin’s extra straw, muttering dire imprecations about my fellow drivers.

“You know they can’t see us, right?” asked Quentin, amused.

“Shut up.”

“I don’t think it’s fair to call them names if they can’t even see us.”

“Shut up, or you’re walking.”

Quentin just laughed. I didn’t say anything, but I was relieved. With Raj missing and Chelsea’s mother threatening police action—and at least one officer already trying to tail us—I couldn’t imagine that laughter was going to be much of a priority in the days ahead.

We had just reached the Fremont city limits when the charm in Quentin’s hand changed from red to its previous white. The air in the car went strangely flat, like something was being discharged. Quentin frowned, giving the charm a vigorous shake. Its color didn’t change.

“I think it’s broken,” he said.

“I don’t.” My coffee was almost gone. I sucked the last of it through the straw before dropping it into the empty McDonalds bag. “Chelsea’s moving again. Wherever she is now, it’s not here, and it’s not close enough for us to be drawn there. She was in Seattle before, remember?”

“So where is she now? Tokyo?”

“Wherever she is, let’s just hope she’s safe.” I moved over a lane, heading for the freeway exit.

“Are we going to turn around?”

“Nope.” I reached over to steal a few of his remaining fries. They were cold. I ate them anyway. “She stayed in one place long enough for us to get this far. So either she’s managed to find a safe house near here, or her captors are here, and they’re going to drag her back.”

“That’s a pretty big assumption,” he said dubiously.

“It’s what I’ve got right now. Besides, I want to talk to April. She’s a teleporter, and more, she’s a computer system. Maybe she can do some sort of magic…math…thing and tell where Chelsea has been.”

Quentin shot me an amused look. “Magic math thing?”

“Shut up.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard of the magic math thing. How does it work, exactly?”

“Shut up twice .” Inwardly, I was beaming. Quentin’s reaction was exactly what I’d been hoping for: entertained, relaxed, and not tangled up with his concern about Raj. I was worried, too. That didn’t mean we could lose sight of the larger problem. As much as I hated to even have the thought, if I had a choice between saving Chelsea and saving Raj…

Who was I kidding? I’d save Raj, and Faerie would pay the price. I’m a lot of things, but rational where the people I love are concerned has never been one of them. I just hoped it wasn’t going to come to that.

Quentin snickered as I pulled off the freeway. Time to get ourselves over to Tamed Lightning and see what kind of help we could get from the locals.

The San Francisco Bay Area claims to be a single place, much like the United States of America claims to be a single country. In reality, the Bay is divided into four regions, maybe more. There’s San Francisco, with its high fogs and deep-sunk roots. There’s the East Bay, industrial city, and the deep East Bay past the Caldecott Tunnel, where the suburbanites dream of something past the hills. Fremont is in a different country entirely: the South Bay, land of technological advancements, stucco buildings that fade into the landscape like ghosts, and heat that bakes the pavement even in relatively temperate weather. If there was any place on the planet designed to be infiltrated by fae pretending to be human while they ran a computer company, it’s Fremont. No one was ever going to look there twice.

We pulled up in front of the pseudo-medieval gate to ALH Computing less than twenty minutes after we got off the freeway. The fact that they could have that gate at all was one more illustration of how perfect a city Fremont was for them. None of the fae in San Francisco would have dared to install a doorway that looked like something out of a BBC drama about King Arthur. We’d have been too afraid of getting caught. The fae in Fremont just assumed they’d be written off as geeks…and they were right.

The portcullis spanning the gate slid upward as we approached, signaling that we’d been recognized and welcomed. I drove through, shuddering as we passed under the points of the portcullis itself. The first time Quentin and I went to ALH, that portcullis—or one like it—tried to kill us. It was only able to do that because someone had used magic to tamper with the control systems, and that someone was long dead. I didn’t care. The portcullis was still a damn big piece of metal, and I knew firsthand how much damage it could do to a car.

“I hate that thing,” Quentin muttered. He waved a hand, releasing the hide-and-seek that hid us. The smell of heather and steel filled the car.

“You and me both, kid,” I said, and kept driving.

The driveway wound gently down to the parking lot. The cats that had decorated the place on our first visit were gone; the Queen of Cats they’d been gathered to mourn had long since been avenged, and they had scattered on whatever strange errands drive the felines of the world. Two people were waiting for us outside the main building when I pulled up to the curb.

One was tall and blonde, with the pointed ears and delicate bone structure characteristic of the Daoine Sidhe: April O’Leary, the least Dryad-like Dryad in the world. Whatever she looked like originally—probably small and lithe, with green hair and skin like bark—she looks like her mother now. There are worse ways to remember the people you love.

The woman next to April was unfamiliar. She was shorter, with sleek black hair pulled into a high ponytail, a pleasant smile, and eyes that were black from side to side, like polished jet. She was clearly of Chinese descent, and she clearly wasn’t human. Beyond that, I had no idea what she was.

I waved as I got out of the car. “Hey, April. Sorry to drop in on you like this.”

“I was online,” she said, with a hint of amusement in her tone. That alone represented a huge leap for her. When we first met April O’Leary, she didn’t understand the concept of “humor” as it applied to other people. These days, she actually makes jokes. Bad ones, but still jokes. “What is the purpose of your visit?”