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heard a man's voice in my head: "Get under the bed, now." 1 didn't argue. I
rolled off the bed and crawled under it. The red sheets spilled down over the
edge, hiding everything but a thin sliver of light.
There was a sound of breaking glass, like a thousand windows breaking all at
once. Alistair's screams vanished under the sound of falling glass. The glass
burst on the carpet like brittle hail, a tinkling, sharp sound.
Silence filled the room by degrees, as the glass settled over the room. There
was a sound of splintering wood. I couldn't see it, but 1 thought it was the
door. "Merry, Merry!" It was Jeremy.
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Roane yelled, "Merry, dear God."
I crawled to the edge of the bed and lifted the rim of the sheet to see the
floor glittering silver. I called, "I'm here. I'm here." I reached my hand out
from under the bed, waving it, but unable to move farther without getting cut
on the glass.
A hand gripped mine, and someone laid a suit jacket over the glass so that
Roane could pull me out from under the bed. It wasn't until he was cradling me
in his arms that I realized I was still covered in
Branwyn's Tears, and what that might mean for us. But I'd gotten a glimpse of
what lay on the bed, and it stole the words from my mouth. I think I forgot to
breathe for a second or two.
Roane carried me toward the door. I stared back over his shoulder at what lay
on the bed. I knew it was a man. I even knew it was Alistair Norton, but if I
hadn't known what I was looking at, I'm not sure
I'd have known it was human. The shape was as crimson as the sheets it lay on.
The glass had turned him into so much raw meat. I couldn't see the spiders
under all that blood. I knew two things, maybe three.
First, the magician on the other end of the spell was sidhe; second, he or she
had tried to kill me; third, if it wasn't for Jeremy getting a spell through
the ward, I'd be just a smaller red lump on the blood-soaked bed. I owed
Jeremy a very big favor.
Chapter 6
THE POLICE WOULDN'T LET ME SHOWER. THEY WOULDN'T EVEN LET ME wash my hands.
Four hours after Roane carried me out of the bedroom, I was still trying to
explain to the police exactly what had happened to Alistair Norton. I wasn't
having much luck. No one believed my version of events. They'd all watched the
tape, and they still didn't believe me. I think the only reason I hadn't been
charged with Alistair's murder was that I'd been outed as Princess Meredith
NicEssus. They knew and I
knew that all I had to do was claim diplomatic immunity and I could walk out
the door. So they were taking their time about charges.
What they didn't know was that I was almost as eager to avoid bringing in the
diplomats as they were.
Once I claimed diplomatic immunity, they'd contact the Board of Human-Fey
Relations. They would contact the ambassador to the sidhe courts. The
ambassador would contact the Queen of Air and
Darkness. He'd tell her exactly where I was. Knowing my aunt, she'd tell them
to keep me "safe" until her guard could arrive to bring me back home. I'd be
trapped like a rabbit in a snare until someone came along to snap my neck and
take me home like a prize.
I sat at the small table with a glass of water in front of me. I had a blanket
that the paramedics had given me draped over the back of the chair. The
blanket had been to keep me warm in case of shock and to cover the ruined
front of my dress. I'd spent part of the last few hours being cold and needing
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blanket, but the rest of the time it was as if my blood ran hot. I was either
shivering or almost sweating, a combination of shock and Branwyn's Tears.
Going from one extreme to the other had given me an amazing headache. No one
would get me anything for the headache because they were all planning on
getting me to the hospital soon-always soon, never now.
I'd still been glowing softly when the first police backups had arrived. I
wouldn't be able to do glamour as long as the oil was in my system. So I
couldn't hide. Some of the first uniforms recognized me; one of them had said,
"You're Princess Meredith." The soft California night had taken a breath
around us, and I
knew it was only a matter of time until the Queen of Air and Darkness sent
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someone to investigate this latest whisper. I had to be out of town before
that happened. I had at least one more night, maybe two, before my aunt's
guard would arrive. I had time to sit here and answer questions. But I was
getting tired of answering the same questions.
So why was I still sitting in the hard-backed chair, looking across a small
table at a detective I'd never met before? First, even if I walked out of here
without being charged or claiming diplomatic immunity, they would contact the
politicians. They'd do it to cover their asses. Second, I wanted Detective
Alvera to believe me about Branwyn's Tears and just how serious it would be if
there was more of the oil out there. Probably it was a gift from whatever
sidhe had set up the leech spell. The one bottle may have been all anyone
outside the courts had. That was the best-case scenario. But if there was even
the slightest chance that humans, with or without sidhe help, had figured out
how to manufacture Branwyn's
Tears and it was out on the market, then it had to be stopped.
Of course, there was another possibility. The sidhe that set Norton up in his
little magic-rape scam might have been giving Branwyn's Tears to lots of
others. This was probably the more likely of the two worst-case scenarios, but
I couldn't tell the police that another sidhe had been involved with Alistair
Norton. You do not take sidhe business to the human police, not if you want to
keep all your body parts attached.
Police are good at smelling lies, or maybe, to save time, they just assume
everyone is lying. Whatever the reason, Detective Alvera didn't like my story.
He sat across from me, tall, dark, slender, with hands that looked too big for
his narrow shoulders. His eyes were a solid brown with a fringe of dark lashes
that made you notice them, or maybe that was just me tonight. Jeremy had laid
a warding over me to help me control the Tears. He'd traced runes across my
forehead with his finger and his power. Nothing visible to the police, but I
could feel them like a cold fire if I concentrated. Without Jeremy's spell,
Goddess knew what I'd have done by now. Something embarrassing and slutty.
Even protected by the runes I was very aware of all the men in the room.
Alvera stared at me with lovely, distrustful eyes. I watched how the shape of
his lips formed words, such a generous mouth, a kissable mouth. "Did you hear
what I just said, Ms. NicEssus?"
I blinked at him and realized I hadn't. "I'm sorry, Detective. Could you
repeat it?"
"I think this interrogation is coming to an end, Detective Alvera," my lawyer
said. "It's obvious that my client is very tired and in shock."
My lawyer was a partner at James, Browning, and Galan. She was Galan. Usually
Browning handled the
Grey Detective Agency's legal affairs. I think Eileen Galan was here because
Jeremy had mentioned the rape part. A woman would be more sympathetic, or at
least that was the theory.
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She sat beside me in her dark pinstriped skirt suit, so neat and pressed she
looked like she'd just been unwrapped. Her greying blond hair was styled
perfectly; her makeup was flawless. There was even a shine on her black
high-heeled pumps. It was two o'clock in the morning, and Eileen looked like
she'd just finished a power breakfast and was eager to greet the day.
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