Bone Walker (11 page)

“Humph,” said Millie. She cast a narrow-eyed look up and down the Sidhe, and then pivoted back to Christopher. As she did, some small fraction of the tension in the room subsided. As approval went, it wasn't much. By Millicent Merriweather's standards, though, it was tantamount to a motherly embrace. “Good, 'cause I ain't got time to deal with you on top of
nogitsune
, a dragon hatchling, my Warder Second going all haywire on me, and God only knows what that came out of the bard.”

At that exact instant, Carson moved. “Kendis,” he called out sharply, for I was nearest to him—and to the figure that came shuffling, on bare feet and wrapped in the incongruous protection of my fire-colored quilt, out of my bedroom.

Elessir.

“I trust,” he said in a ghost of his former drawl, “that if I'm one of the topics under discussion, you won't object if I join your council of war?”

Right then and there you could have called us all shell-shocked, but you'd have been putting it mildly. Frankly, I'd almost managed to forget about my unwelcome houseguest in the wake of the fight Christopher and I had just been in, and in Millicent's reaction to the news that the northernmost Wards on Seattle were apparently a little more fluid for Christopher than they should have been. From the looks on the faces of everyone except Millicent, Elessir had apparently slipped all their minds as well.

Christopher's face went as cold as it ever got, with a darkening of his eyes and a tight set to his mouth. Jake shot the Unseelie a look that strongly suggested that if he were in his
myobu
form, he'd be showing fang. Carson threw a brawny arm right across Elessir's path, while Melisanda jolted, gritted her teeth, and went for the hilt of her sheathed sword. Millie froze where she stood, stock-still, and I was pretty damned sure the only reason she hadn't pulled her shotgun was the simple fact she wasn't armed.

The tension that had vanished from the room ratcheted right back up again, this time with an even more hostile bite to it than Melisanda had provoked—for this time, the Seelie was not only part of the reaction, she was its furious heart. She surged forward from her place by the front door, past both of the Warders and Jake, and only my outthrust hand kept her from going for Elessir's naked throat. “I pledged to obey my Queen,” she snarled, “and make amends for my trespasses. But that does not include consorting with this treacherous worm!”

Something close to Elessir's devilish grin slid across his mouth, but there was no mirth in it, and it didn't reach his eyes. “Ah'm jes' thrilled to death to see you again too, darlin',” he rasped. After many hours of sleep he was no longer the deathly white shade he'd been before, but this wasn't saying much. His voice was weak, and he was still haggard, disheveled, and looking far too pitiful for my comfort.

Which, no doubt, was why I clocked him across the jaw.

Millicent guffawed and one of the boys whooped with startled satisfaction, though I didn't pay enough attention to notice who. I was too busy whirling to Melisanda, catching her mid-lunge before she could finish what I'd started and tackle Elessir to the floor.

“Don't even think it!” I shouted. “Both of you tried to kill me, so there's not much difference between the Unseelie and the Seelie as far as I'm concerned. Right now the number of damns I give about whatever history you've got is less than zero. You”—and I jabbed a finger at the Seelie—“are here only because I'm big enough to take an apology, and if you pull a weapon under my roof again without me or Millicent or Christopher telling you, you are
gone
. You—”

With that, I turned back to Elessir. Carson had caught him before he could fall over. He shrugged off my housemate's hands and straightened before me, his stance stiff with pain, but proud. “Why am I here, Miss Thompson?”

Damned good question, wasn't it?

I eyed him, suspicious, unnerved and unutterably tired, and finally sighed. “You're here because you helped Christopher and me, and because you're in trouble. Happy?”

Surely he must have noted the temper in my voice; he was too perceptive not to. He gave no sign of it, though, and instead just stared back at me, his brows drawing in low over eyes gone nearly as dark as his hair. “Depleted,” he countered. Elessir hesitated, something I had never seen him do. His jaw worked a moment, and then he added with gruff reluctance, “And grateful for your care. I will give you no trouble.”

This, I thought, was the worst kind of dirty pool. What was I supposed to do with an Unseelie who could barely stand, much less snark at me, ensnare me with his music or power, or do anything else to put me and mine in peril? I could think of only one thing: feed him, along with the others all gathered in my house. Not to mention myself. I desperately needed fuel, and gathering lunch makings for all of us would give me something to do with my hands as well as my overloaded brain.

“Good,” I said. There wasn't much grace in it, but when it came to Elessir a'Natharion, that was progress. “Go sit down somewhere else, then, you're pretty much transparent.” I slid a look over to Melisanda to include her, and from her I glanced out to the whole room. “All of you. Please. Just… get out of my hair for a little bit. I need to make food. Christopher? Millie? We should talk.”

On top of everything else, every nerve in my body screamed at the presence of the two Sidhe. Never mind that they'd both been in on my uncle Malandor's plot against me; never mind all the baggage that apparently came with being in either the Seelie or Unseelie Courts, all the politics and history and grudges I was barely beginning to grasp. Never mind even the uncomfortable memory of my uncle, Elessir, and especially Queen Luciriel all being able to liquefy my will just by exerting a little magic, a trick against which I still wasn't sure I could properly defend. No, this was purely physical. Without looking at either of them, I was acutely aware of their proximity. I could smell them, and that was all it took.

“You heard her,” Carson told them, jerking a thumb over his shoulder towards the short hallway that connected my half of the duplex with his and Jake's. “C'mon, you two. Let's give them some space.”

“I'd like to know more of the
nogitsune
, if you'd be so kind,” Jake added. His tone was less brusque than his partner's, more mannerly. But the tension hadn't left his frame or his eyes, and even though he gestured graciously ahead for Melisanda to precede them, the look on his face told me he was about to pump the warrior for data as soon as they got her out of sight and earshot. “Come with us?”

Carson didn't go so far as to actually grab Elessir to drag him off, but he did stay within quick reach of the singer. I wasn't sure whether it was to make sure Elessir actually went, or to catch him if he fell. The latter seemed reasonable. Elessir moved as though the floor was unreliable beneath his feet, as if it might turn at any moment into something far more dangerous than carpet. I didn't watch them go; I didn't want to think about him walking off with my Aunt Aggie's quilt wrapped that close around him.

I didn't want him to smell like me.

Macaroni and cheese and tuna fish sandwiches.
They wouldn't make for a very refined lunch, and I had no real idea if Melisanda or Elessir would turn up their noses at such blatantly common,
mortal
fare. I was, however, as previously mentioned, completely out of givable damns. Grudgingly or not, I'd allowed them into my home, and Aunt Aggie would tear me a new one if she found out I failed to feed them. The Sidhe would just have to cope with my human hospitality.

From my cabinets I fetched a pot to boil water and a can of tuna; from the refrigerator I brought out milk and cheese. The tasks kept me moving. But they did nothing to calm my thoughts, and I scowled at the quaver in my voice as I said, “So, ah, how big a problem is what happened to Christopher? Do we need to care?”

Both of the Warders had followed me into the kitchen. Without asking if I needed the help, Christopher reached around me to get out glasses and plates. “Warders don't walk across city limits under their own power,” he said. His brow was furrowed in hard thought.

I knew this already, of course, since it'd been one of the first things I'd learned from him and Millicent. But I was out of my depth, and from the look on Christopher's face, so was he. That left Millicent, and I shot her an anxious look even as I measured out water to boil in the pot. “So do we need to care?” I repeated. “Nothing happened—he's okay. He only went a few yards!”

“Boy's right,” said Millie. She still wore a ferocious glower, though it was tempered now with dismay. “Lake Forest Park's been its own city since before both of you children were born. He shouldn't have been able to go one step into it, much less several yards.”

“But he's okay,” I insisted. Now that everyone else had retreated, I let myself whirl around, look up into his eyes and demand, “You are, aren't you?”

One end of his mouth quirked up, just a little. “I'm fine, lass.”

“I mean, that fox bitch bit you and yeah, yeah, yeah, I know,
kitsune
aren't werewolves, but I swear to God if you start growing a tail—”

“Kenna.” Christopher gripped my shoulder with one hand. With the other he caught the palm I slapped against his chest in my frustration, cutting me off at the pass. “I'm all right.”

Hearing him say it twice made it sink in at last. I shuddered, heaved a sigh, and then flung my arms around him to pull him close. “It'd be too much,” I mumbled against his chest. “Anything happening to you, along with all the other shit that's happened this weekend.”

“Nothing had damn well better happen,” Millie groused. She too had to be restless, for she took the dishes Christopher had gotten out and stalked over to lay them out on my small kitchen table. “I need you, boy. This ain't the time for you to conk out on me. You feel anything at all, the slightest thing that ain't normal, I want to know about it.”

“I'm fit, Millie, and that's God's own truth,” Christopher said. “I wish I knew what to tell you about what happened at the city line, but I don't. Those few steps didn't feel any different. They…” I felt his shrug, since his arms were still loosely curled around me. “They felt like Seattle.”

“Maybe it's just because it blends in together anyway?” I suggested, anxious for anything that sounded reasonable, and which might chase the looks of worry off the faces of the two people I trusted most to help me make sense of my own changed world. “You couldn't tell where Seattle stops and Lake Forest Park ends just by looking. Maybe the magic can't tell either.”

Millicent snorted, though not unkindly, as she turned back to us both. “Honey, the magic always knows where a Warder's city stops.”

“So what does it think about Christopher's?”

“Lass, I think your first question's still the right one,” Christopher said. “Right now, I don't think we can care. Not with everything else about us.” He glanced at the older Warder. “We'll not talk of this in front of the Sidhe.”

It wasn't a question so much as a promise, and Millicent bobbed her head once in curt approval. “Definite need-to-know basis. They don't. Until we understand it better, this stays between us.” Before I could chime in, she pointed at me. “For all I know, girlie, you may have something to do with this. You two are still all tangled up together, magically speaking. So I'll need you to keep this to yourself too.” She drew in a breath and let it out again in resignation. “That means no talking to Jude about it either.”

I went still, something in my belly going cold, for I'd beaten her to that very thought. “Because we don't know what happened to her,” I said. “What… went into her.”

“Finding that out, fast as we can, is more important than anything else right now. And there's only one person who can start filling us in.”

“Elessir,” Christopher said, his embrace stiffening around me. I couldn't take any issue with the scowl that rolled down his face, since I had one of my own, and the tension that tautened his frame echoed in mine. Millie, on the other hand, gave us an abrupt feral smile.

“Exactly. And I'm gonna wring him for every last thing he can tell us.”

After all of that, Millicent gave the Unseelie until after lunch before she started her interrogation. Not that any of us said anything much past the barest minimum dictates of politeness. Christopher and I, to be sure, couldn't think of much to say to either Elessir or Melisanda that wouldn't come out as an accusation or a challenge. Carson and Jake were better at it, and it was only after I'd started handing out sandwiches to everyone in the house that I remembered that the boys had experience dealing with the Seelie Court. They'd even been there when Melisanda and Tarrant, my uncle's other lieutenant, had brought word to Queen Amelialoren of my uncle's death at the hands of the demon Azganaroth. I hadn't ever asked exactly how they'd gotten in good enough with the Seelie to have that kind of pull, whether it was through Millicent or what. Right then, tense as I was, I didn't care. It was enough to leave them to what they'd already been discussing when I called them to the table—the
nogitsune
, where we'd fought them, and the other traces of them Melisanda had followed along the northernmost stretch of King County.

Nor did Millicent miss a word of it. As soon as we'd had sustenance she proclaimed Jake the best one of the lot of us to pursue where the
nogitsune
might have gone and to find out their identities if at all possible. Jake avowed that he'd planned to do just that. After trading meaningful looks with his partner, he invited Melisanda to take him and Carson out to where we'd fought on the Burke-Gilman Trail to see what they could pick up from there.