Divine Misdemeanors

Chapter Fourty-five

The address was a house in the hills. It was a nice house, or had been before the bank got it and the housing market crashed. Apparently our serial killers were squatting in the house. I wondered what they’d do if the estate agent brought prospective buyers around unexpectedly. Probably best that that didn’t happen.

Sholto came back to L.A. He was the Lord of That Which Passes Between. The tree line and the yard of the house was a between place, just like where the beach met the ocean, or where a cultivated field abutted a wild place. He could bring more than a dozen soldiers to the edge of the yard itself. But that was as close as he could get. Doyle had been in charge of scouting the area and had found the house thick with magical wards. They might be crazed serial killers but they knew their magical wards. It was a mix of human and fey magic, as good as any he’d seen in years, which was high praise.

It meant we would have to be inside the wards and just trust that either we wouldn’t need Sholto and his backup, or that we could stall until they smashed through the walls. He was going to bring the Red Caps because the magical wards wouldn’t stop them. They’d just avoid the windows and doors, which were the most heavily warded, and make new doors in the walls themselves where there were no wards. Demi-fey were strong, but they didn’t think about that kind of brute force any more than humans did. It was an edge for us, but we needed more.

Frost was coming with Sholto and the Red Caps. Doyle would go in ahead with Cathbodua and Usna, who were the other two guards about whom he actually said, “They hide almost as well as I do. I would trust them to do this.” Again, high praise.

The question was, who would go in as my two overt guards? Barinthus asked to go. “I have failed you, Merry. I have been arrogant and unhelpful, but for this I am ideal. I can take more damage than even most of the sidhe. I have used diplomacy for centuries but it’s not because I lack skill with any weapon.” Doyle had backed him on that.

Barinthus had added, “And I am proof against most magic no matter what it is.”

I’d studied his face, not sure if he was just bragging again.

“I am the sea made into flesh, Merry. You cannot set the sea on fire. You cannot drain it dry. You cannot even poison all of it. You can hit it, but the blow does you no good. Being by the ocean has given me back much of my power. Let me do this for you. Let me prove that I was worthy to be Essus’s friend, and that I am yours.”

In the end both Doyle and Frost agreed that he was a good choice and so he was one.

“The other one has to be me,” Rhys said. “I’m third in charge and almost as good with weapons as the two big guys here, better with an axe. And I’m almost back to my old power level. I can kill fey with a touch of my hand; you’ve seen me do it.”

“Have you tried doing it when faerie wasn’t touching either you or the victim?” I asked.

We’d all had to think about that. In the end he’d gone out into the yard in a section that hadn’t become fey and found an insect. He made sure the demi-fey were okay with him doing it, and then he touched it and told it to die. It rolled over on its back, twitched once, and died.

“Now if only I got back my healing powers, too,” he said.

Doyle had agreed, but for this night’s work death was better. By six that night we had our plan in place, and enough people to make it work. That was why kings and queens needed hundreds of people. Sometimes you needed soldiers.

Sholto would give us a little time and then he would take everyone out to the yard and the wall and he’d lead them to the edge of the other yard miles away. I knew he could do it, and then we’d have all the help we needed, but there would be a few minutes when it would be up to the handful of us who were going to be there first. Barinthus and Rhys as my guards, and Doyle, Usna, and Cathbodua, who had the best chance of going undetected into the house.

Some of our demi-fey mingled with the local insects on the edge of the property in the bank of wildflowers near the house. They were supposed to let us know if Bittersweet went too bitter too early and started to cut Julian up. It was the best we could do.

Doyle, Cathbodua, and Usna went in one of the cars before we did. Doyle wrapped me in his arms and I put my head against his chest so that I could hear the slow, deep beat of his heart. I breathed in his scent as if I would memorize it.

He raised my face so he could kiss me. There were a thousand things I wanted to say, but in the end, I said the most important one. “I love you.”

“And I you, my Merry.”

“Don’t get killed,” I said.

“Nor you.”

We kissed again, declared our love again, and that was it. The first of the people I cared about the most left to try to get past some of the most powerful magical wards they’d seen in centuries outside of faerie itself. If they could get inside before we arrived, they would take our bad guys and rescue Julian, but if they thought it would set off alarms before they could save Julian they would wait. Barinthus would accidentally on purpose set off all their wards like a false alarm, and Doyle, Cathbodua, and Usna would breach the wards at the same time. When they reset their wards we’d have extra people inside. That was the plan.

I had to kiss too many people good-bye when it was our turn to leave. Too many “I love you’s” and too many “don’t die on me’s.” Galen was wordless as he held me and kissed me good-bye. He would come with Sholto and the others, and he would fight this battle. Once they had kidnapped Julian he hadn’t even argued, and he hadn’t once said, “I told you so.” For that I loved him more than his willingness to shed blood to save Julian. We’d all do what we had to do to save our friend, but most of the men wouldn’t have been able to resist an “I told you so.”

Rhys drove, and Barinthus had the backseat to himself. I had the shotgun seat though no real shotgun. I was carrying my Lady Smith because they’d told us not to bring the police, or more than two guards; they hadn’t said not to bring weapons, so we were all loaded for Dragon.

I was also wearing a folding knife in a thigh sheath under my summer skirt, not because I thought I’d use it to cut someone, but because cold steel cuts through most glamour. If I’d had less human or brownie blood in me, I might not have been able to bear the knife next to my skin, but I wasn’t just one thing. I was the sum of my parts. I kept thinking calm thoughts as Rhys drove up into the hills. I hoped that what little dinner I’d eaten wasn’t something my new baby-rich body didn’t like. I didn’t want to throw up all over the bad guys, or then again, maybe I did. It would certainly be distracting.

In a pinch I could fake morning sickness. I held the thought in reserve, and prayed to Goddess and Consort that Julian wasn’t hurt badly and that we would get out safe, and none of us would get hurt. That was my prayer as we drove into the growing dusk.

There was no smell of roses to accompany the prayer.