Jim Butcher - Summer Knight

"You named your car after a superhero on the Electric Company ?" Elaine reached into a brown leather purse on the chair beside her and drew out an identical valve cap. "Clever."

I looked at the purse. What looked like airline tickets was sticking out of it. "You're running."

"You are a veritable wizard of the obvious, Harry." She started to shrug, and her face became ashen, her expression twisting with pain. She took a slow breath and then resumed the motion with her unwounded shoulder. "I feel well motivated to run."

"Do you really think a plane ticket will get you away from the Queens?"

"It will get me away from ground zero. That's enough. There's no way to find out who did it in time—and I don't feel like running up against another assassin. I barely got away from the first one."

I shook my head. "We're close," I said. "We have to be. They took a shot at me last night too. And I think I know who did both."

She looked up at me, sharply. "You do?"

I picked up a crust of toast she'd discarded, mopped it through some leftover eggs, and ate it. "Yeah. But you probably have to catch a flight."

Elaine rolled her eyes. "Tell you what. You stay here and feel smug. I'll get another plate and be back when you're done." She got up, rather stiffly, and walked over to the buffet. She loaded her plate up with eggs and bacon and sausage mixed in with some French toast, and came back to the table. My mouth watered.

She pushed the plate at me. "Eat."

I did, but between bites I asked, "Can you tell me what happened to you?"

She shook her head. "Not much to tell. I spoke with Mab and then with Maeve. I was on my way back to my hotel and someone jumped me in the parking lot. I was able to slip most of his first strike and called up enough fire to drive him away. Then I found your car."

"Why did you come to me?" I asked.

"Because I didn't know who did it, Harry. And I don't trust anyone else in this town."

My throat got a little tight. I borrowed her coffee to wash down the bacon. "It was Lloyd Slate."

Elaine's eyes widened. "The Winter Knight. How do you know?"

"While I was with Maeve, he came in carrying a knife in a box, and he'd been burned. It was coated in dried blood. Maeve was pretty furious that it wasn't any good to her."

Lines appeared between her eyebrows. "Slate … he was fetching my blood for her so that she could work a spell on me." She tried to cover it, but I saw her shiver. "He probably tailed me out of that party. Thank the stars I used fire."

I nodded. "Yeah. Dried out the blood, made it useless for whatever she wanted." I shoveled down some more food. "Then last night I got jumped by a hired gun and a couple of faerie beasties." I gave her the summary of the attack at Wal-Mart, leaving Murphy out of it.

"Maeve," Elaine said.

"It's about all I've got," I said. "It doesn't fit her very well, but—"

"Of course it fits her," Elaine said absently. "Don't tell me you fell for that psychotic dilettante nymphomaniac act she put on."

I blinked and then said through a mouthful of French toast, "No. 'Course not."

"She's smart, Harry. She's playing on your expectations."

I chewed the next bite more slowly. "It's a good theory. But that's all it is. We need to know more."

Elaine frowned at me. "You mean you want to talk to the Mothers."

I nodded. "I figure they might let a few things slip about how things work. But I don't know how to get there. I thought you might be able to ask someone in Summer."

She closed her paperback. "No."

"No, they won't help?"

"No, I'm not going to see the Mothers. Harry, it's insane. They're too strong. They could kill you—worse than kill you—with a stray thought."

"At this point I'm already in over my head. It doesn't matter how deep the water gets from here." I grimaced. "Besides, I don't really have a choice."

"You're wrong," she said with quiet emphasis. "You don't have to stay here. You don't have to play their game. Leave."

"Like you are?"

"Like I am," Elaine said. "You can't stop what's been set in motion, Harry, but you can kill yourself trying. It's probably what Mab wanted to begin with."

"No. I can stop it."

She gave me a small smile. "Because you're in the right? Harry, it doesn't work like that."

"Don't I know it. But that's not why I think so."

"Then why?"

"You don't try to kill someone who isn't a threat to you. They took shots at both of us. They must think we can stop them."

"They, them," Elaine said. "Even if we are close, we don't know who 'they' is."

"That's why we talk to the Mothers," I told her. "They're the strongest of the Queens. They know the most. If we're smart, and lucky, we can get information from them."

Elaine reached up to tug at her braid, her expression uncertain. "Harry, look. I'm not … I don't want to …" She closed her eyes for a moment and then said in a voice, pained, "Please, don't ask me to do this."

"You don't have to go," I said. "Just find me the way to them. Just try."

"You don't understand the kind of trouble you're asking for," she said.

I looked down at my empty plate and said quietly, "Yeah. I do. I hate it, Elaine, and I'm afraid, and I must be half insane not to just dig myself a hole and pull it in after me. But I understand." I reached across the table and put my hand over hers. Her skin was soft, warm, and she shivered at the touch. "Please."

Her hand turned up, fingers curling briefly against mine. My turn to shiver. Elaine sighed. "You're an imbecile, Harry. You're such a fool."

"I guess some things don't change."

She let out a subdued laugh before withdrawing her hand and standing. "I've got a favor left to me. I'll call it in. Wait here."

Five minutes later, she was back. "All right. Outside."

I stood. "Thank you, Elaine. You going to make your plane?"

She opened her purse and tossed the airline tickets onto the table along with a pair of twenties. "I guess not." Then she took a couple of other items out of the purse: a slave-ring of ivory carved in the shape of a ring of oak leaves and attached to a similar bracelet by a silver chain. An earring fashioned of what might have been copper and a teardrop-shaped black stone. Then an anklet dangling with bangles shaped like bird wings. She put them all on, then looked at my gym bag. "Still going with the phallic foci, eh? Staff and rod?"

"They make me feel all manly."

Her mouth twitched, and she started for the exit. I followed her and found myself opening doors for her out of habit. She didn't seem to be too horribly upset by it.

Outside, cars pulled up into a circle drive at the front of the hotel, airport shuttles disgorging and swallowing travelers, taxis picking up men and women in business suits. Elaine slipped the strap of her purse over her good shoulder and stood there quietly.

Maybe thirty seconds later, I heard the clopping of hooves on blacktop. A carriage rolled into sight, drawn by a pair of horses. One of them was the blue-white color of a drowned corpse, and its breath steamed in the air. The other was grass-green, its mane sown with wildflowers. The carriage itself looked like something from Victorian London, all dark wood and brass filigree—and no one was driving it. The horses came to a halt directly before us and stood there, stamping their feet and tossing their manes. The door to the carriage swung open in silence. No one was inside.

I took a surreptitious look around me. None of the straights seemed to have noticed the carriage or the unworldly horses pulling it. A taxi heading for the space the carriage occupied abruptly veered to one side and found another spot. I made an effort and could sense the whisper of enchantment around the carriage, subtle and strong, probably encouraging the straights not to notice it.