Bone Walker (17 page)

I didn't have to feign the dismay in my voice, and as the onlookers made way for me, I spotted a huskily built woman in a mall security jacket giving Jude quick, efficient CPR. As I threw myself to my knees at my friend's side, she stirred, coughed, and opened her eyes. The security woman immediately stopped what she was doing, and she and I demanded at the same time if Jude was all right.

Jude's eyes sought mine. Her skin had taken on an unhealthy grayish tinge, and her cheekbones looked more distinct than I remembered. But what made my heart crack for her was the all too human terror that flooded her expression, and the tears that welled up in brown eyes that once more held the gaze I knew.

“Get me out of here,
chica
,” she begged in a hoarse whisper.

Those were the only words she uttered as Christopher and I took over, swore up and down to the security guard and the rest of the crowd that we'd get her to the nearest ER, and hustled her back to Millicent's car as fast as we could move.

Jake, Carson, and Melisanda hadn't come back to the house yet by the time we returned, so Millicent met us at my door herself. Christopher was helping Jude out of the car since I'd had to drive and then park—and because, to my disquiet, my friend shied away from my contact when I'd offered her my shoulder for support. At the sight of Jude the older Warder's face took on a keen, sad compassion I'd never seen her openly express before, and she held out her arms as soon as Christopher brought Jude through the front door. “Oh, sweetheart,” she murmured. “Come here. Let old Millie make it better now.”

Jude let out a strangled croak, went straight into Millicent's hug, and began to sob.

“You children let me take care of this,” Millie told us over Jude's head. Then she guided her to my bedroom, crooning soothing nonsense to her as she went.

Christopher quietly closed the door behind us, and only then did I realize that our arrival had had one other witness.

Elessir a'Natharion stood in the entryway between my living room and kitchen, holding a glass of water and looking marginally less pitiful than he had when we'd left. He must have showered, for I could smell the soap and shampoo Carson favored on him from several steps away, and along with the shirt Christopher had bought from the concert, he was wearing a pair of my housemate's sweatpants. His hair was still a disheveled mess, but now at least it was clean, and its disorder might almost have been intentional.

“Miss Thompson,” he greeted me, and with a sober nod to Christopher, he added, “Mister MacSimidh.”

I stopped where I stood, just staring at him, acutely aware of warmth in my cheeks. His physical presence, diminished though it was, was a reminder I didn't need of how the
alokhiu
had tried to tempt me. What in God's name could I say to him, especially with Christopher right behind me? I held back from voicing a sudden impulse to offer him permission to use my first name, or an equally strong impulse to utter his, even though ‘Mister a'Natharion' sounded ridiculous and wrong after I'd held him to give him comfort.

So I settled on asking, “Are you all right?” That seemed safe enough.

The Unseelie singer inclined his head, a far more gracious acknowledgement than my rough little inquiry probably deserved. “I've been both better and immeasurably worse,” he said. His voice still lacked strength, but even now, lurking in it, I could hear traces of music. “Right now I'm awake, and that's enough. Your friend, Miss Lawrence—”

“The bone walker's out of her,” I said.

Elessir closed his eyes and drew in a long breath then let it out again in what looked suspiciously like relief. “Good. Then she gets to live. It would have killed her before tomorrow's sun rose.”

“Not good,” Christopher corrected. “It took a child instead. A dragon child.”

“Great Shining Lady.” Elessir was already far too pale, even for him; if he lost any more color, I couldn't tell. But his voice went dark, and he snapped a gaze full of entreaty onto me. “What kind of dragon? Asian or European?”

“Japanese,” I said. Not that we'd actually heard the kid speak, but it was my best guess from the look of her, and because she'd been chased by the
nogitsune
.

“Then you may thank the gods of your choice that this city is under threat of water rather than fire. But it's at risk all the same. You need to find the
alokhiu
, Miss Thompson, before it claims the hatchling's power for its own.”

“Want to clue us in on how to do that? You know what this thing is. We don't.”

Elessir sniggered at that, a bleak, bitter little sound. “Oh yeah, darlin', I know all too well.” He turned away from Christopher and me, and then, as if only then recalling the glass in his hands, he knocked back the water within as if it were a hard shot of whiskey. As he pressed the emptied glass against his brow, he added, “I won't be of much use to you, I'm afraid.”

“Because you can't,” Christopher demanded, “or because you won't?”

Since I was teetering on the edge of hostility myself, I could hardly blame my man for getting his hackles up. I held back though from biting Elessir's head off, troubled by my own reactions to him. Okay, yeah, fine, the
alokhiu
had been onto something. I had an attraction to him I didn't want to acknowledge, much less indulge. That part I could manage, no problem, thanks to the gorgeous, loyal,
human
guy I was in love with standing right there beside me.

But with his veneer of arrogance stripped away, even with defensive, brooding self-pity thrown up in its stead, Elessir was making it hard for me to remember he was supposed to be a colossal asshole.

“You said she was your wife,” I prodded him. “That your Queen had turned her into, well,
that
. So what the hell?” Not that I really wanted to hear more, but I wasn't about to pull Millie away from tending to Jude, and Christopher looked like the only talking he wanted to do to our Unseelie stray was with his fists. That left me to find out everything I could. Joy, bliss, and rapture.

Elessir avoided Christopher's eyes and mine alike. “Luciriel can command the bones and shades of the dead, and there is no death in the Unseelie Court that does not give her power. If she chooses, she can turn death itself against the lives of those who transgress against her.”

“Like you,” I said, and that at least prompted him to flash me a mirthless smile.

“Like me, 'cause oh yeah, honey, Ah transgressed.” The drawl made him sound almost like himself again. “The Queen of Air and Darkness thought it'd be a fitting punishment to let the thing she'd made of my dead wife devour my magic, and then me.”

Grimly Christopher pointed out, “You also told us she'd let you go.”

Oh God. I'd forgotten that. To be reminded of it now sent panic diving down the length of me, as if my stomach had plunged to my ankles. “What are the chances that Bone Walker Succubitch got out of you because the Queen planned it that way? That she's specifically gunning for us?”

By us, I actually meant me. Fear uncurled in the back of my brain, because I
hadn't
forgotten that the whole reason Elessir had first shown up in Seattle to begin with, as far as Luciriel was concerned, was to try to recruit me to the Unseelie Court. I wanted to fight the thought off—with Jude in such awful shape and a possessed dragon-child on the loose in Seattle streets, this could under no circumstances be just about me.

But still.

“Lass, she's surely not that stupid,” said Christopher, a touch gentler now as he stepped closer to me and clasped my shoulder. “That'd break the Pact wide open. No Warder would stand for it, starting with Millie and me.”

“And all of you,” Elessir pronounced, “are mortals, with mortal lifespans. You don't guard every city on this continent, much less the entire planet. Do you really think the Queen of the Unseelie Court is not prepared to outlast you all if she decides to lay claim to this realm?”

He turned back to me as he said this, his gaze boring into mine, but without the magnetic lure of the thralls his Queen or my dear sweet uncle Malandor had laid on me. All I saw in Elessir's stare was exhaustion, above and beyond the physical. This was a weariness of spirit that had tipped over into despair. For all that he'd claimed to be over nine hundred years old, I'd never quite bought it. At first glance, you'd totally think he was just a little older than me, maybe only as old as Christopher at most. Nor did he have that same primal air about him that the Queens of the Courts wore like cloaks, and without that, as long as you ignored his pointed ears, Elessir could almost pass for human.

Meeting his eyes now, I could tell for the first time that he was in fact
old
. It made me feel barely out of diapers, and I supposed by his standards, I was. And it piqued me deeply that all at once, I wanted to comfort him again.

“If she's all that invincible,” I demanded instead, “then why did you bother to try to rebel against her?”

A slow, dark smile slid across the Unseelie's mouth. “My dear Miss Thompson, I don't think either of us are intoxicated enough for me to share that particular story.”

“Then did Luciriel dump you here on purpose? Can you at least tell us that much?” I practically shouted that question, because I was not, under any circumstances, going to let myself imagine Elessir a'Natharion drunk.

His smile vanished more quickly than it had come. To my surprise his gaze fell away from mine and flashed warily to Christopher before coming back at last to me. “I…” He paused, and before I could boggle at the sight of him actually hesitating for words, he went on, “I wasn't thinking of this city specifically when I opened the portal. I was just trying to get to somewhere… safe.”

My brain seized up hard on those last few words. I could deal with Elessir's feverish, ailing mind locking on to the last Warded city he'd been in as a potential haven if he'd flung himself blindly out of Faerie. I could even deal with his picking Seattle because we'd all helped keep him alive when my uncle had turned against him in the end, even if he'd lived only to be taken away anyway by his Queen. But he'd come not only to Seattle, but also to Seattle Center in particular, when Christopher and I had been there.

And he'd clung to me, had begged me for my promise of his safety. So many implications, none of which I wanted to even begin to try to touch.

Christopher, thankfully, came to my rescue. He slipped a supportive arm around me, bolstering both the physical and magical contact between us, and told our Unseelie guest, “You'll be safe here, as long as you uphold the Pact. You willing to give your binding word on that?”

Two months' active duty as a Warder probably didn't measure up any further than my own youth and inexperience did, from where Elessir stood. But Christopher, bless him, delivered that question with every bit of Millicent's forthright assurance, which made me proud.

“Would you accept it if I did?” Elessir coolly inquired. “I had the distinct impression, Mister MacSimidh, that you had a particular grievance against those of my Court.”

Which was true, and Christopher's mouth went taut, but even now he didn't flinch. “I'd just as soon set the lot o' you on fire. However, Kendis says you get shelter in her house, and inside these walls what she says goes. Outside 'em, Millicent and I will help all those that need it, and take a promise given in good faith.” He paused for only a breath before gruffly appending, “Even from you.”

The Unseelie gave him a long, measuring stare and then offered his hand. “I will uphold the Pact in this city. My binding word is given.”

“And taken,” Christopher said, taking the hand offered him and shaking it. I saw no petty posturing in that clasping of palms, and that was oddly comforting. So too was the ripple I felt from Christopher's magic, as if the Wards of Seattle had heard and witnessed the exchange. What Elessir got from it I couldn't tell, since he still lacked the resonance of his rightful power, the magic the
alokhiu
had stolen.

I wondered all at once if he would get it back. Wondered, too, how much Luciriel's creature had taken from Jude.

“If you boys are going to play nice,” I said, casting an unhappy glance down my hallway, “we'd better tell Millie about the bone walker taking the dragon so we can nail down a plan. Try not to kill each other, okay?”

“Ah done gave mah word, Miss Thompson ma'am, Ah ain't gonna back out now,” Elessir drawled.

Christopher glared at him, but only for a moment before his attention came back to me. “Go make sure she's okay,” he said. He didn't mean Millicent. And while his voice was calm, his eyes relayed concern as great as my own.

For once, though, I paid those eyes barely any heed. I was already bolting down the hall, unable to keep myself from checking on Jude any longer.

The old Warder woman must have sensed me coming. Before I could reach my bedroom door, Millicent emerged, her black eyes suspiciously damp, the closest I had ever seen her get to crying. The sight of that was enough to make me tear up myself, and I had to fight to keep my voice from shaking as I reported, “Christopher and Elessir need to talk to you about what happened in Bellevue with the bone walker. We saw that dragon kid again. It took her when it jumped out of Jude.”

Millie gave me a long, measuring look—a lot like Elessir's, in fact, which didn't help my composure any—but then simply nodded. “I'll take care of it, honey. You go in and see her now.” I would have hurried past her except for the hand she shot to my elbow, holding me where I stood. “Be gentle,” she added, still softly, but with an unmistakable sternness that made it an order.

Oh God.
Dread tried to claw its way up my throat, but I swallowed it down hard before it could break free, before it could make me wail.
Tamp it down
, I commanded myself.
It's not about you!