Changeling on the Job: A Changeling Wars Novella (8 page)

“Yes, because we’re both in good condition for a fight.”

As soon as the words left her mouth, I felt all the aches and pains from two battles. My left hand hurt, the wound in my shoulder throbbed, and all the thin cuts from the sprites burned and itched. I changed one of my windows back to glass. A thin, sallow light shone through. The sun had begun to rise.

I was tired.

“Well, I don’t have a choice in the matter, so that means that you don’t, either. We’re going.” I grabbed my keys from the countertop and went for the door.

“I had
better
get a television after all this,” Anwynn said as she limped after me.

I called Gomez as soon as I got out the door.

“This is twice in one night, Ms. Philbin,” Gomez said when she picked up. “This had better be good—like you telling me you apprehended whoever it is that kidnapped that woman.”

“No,” I said, a bit breathlessly, “but I know who did. Grian—are they still keeping her at the Inverness facility?”

“No,” Gomez said. “They moved her downtown.”

“What’s the address?”

I repeated it in my mind twice, making sure I’d memorized it.

“I don’t like where this is going,” Gomez said. “That Fae man, the one like you, he said she didn’t have magic anymore.”

“She doesn’t.” I opened the car door and Anwynn jumped inside. “Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll take care of it, I promise. Try not to worry.” And then I hung up and followed my hound into the car. My phone started to ring again immediately, but I ignored it. There’d be hell to pay from Gomez later, but I didn’t have the time to explain at the moment.

I peeled out of the driveway and headed toward downtown. As soon as we hit the first stoplight, I slammed my hands against the steering wheel. “Why would anyone want to free Grian? I did all the Fae families a favor by getting rid of her. She was absolutely nuts. Like peanuts in a can nuts. Just rattling insanity. Now the other Fae families are out from under her boot. You’d think they’d be grateful.”

Anwynn grumbled a little. “The majority suffers beneath a tyrant, but there are always those who benefit.”

“Those who want to maintain the status quo,” I said.

She looked out the window as I sped past the intersection. “Change is terrifying for almost anyone, but most especially for the Sidhe, for whom things have remained the same for hundreds of years at a time. Then you show up, and everything gets turned upside down.”

The Guardian, whoever he was, had enjoyed the favor of Grian, simply by doing her bidding and feeding her information. Now, with Grian gone, he was cut adrift. If any knew the ways he’d betrayed the Guardians, they’d shun him, even if half the Guardians had been complicit or had just looked the other way. It was another thing about Sidhe culture I found difficult to grasp: a bad thing was usually only a bad thing if you got
caught
.

I slammed the brakes for a stop sign. “I didn’t mean to upset the balance of the Fae simply by existing, but if anyone thinks I’m going to off myself just to save some crazy Sidhe the trouble, they’ve got another thing coming.”

I turned the corner. The streets were mostly empty this early in the morning, but there was another car ahead of me. A green Honda Accord. “Hey,” I nudged Anwynn. “What do you make of that?” I rolled down her window.

She put just her nose out and sniffed. “Calendula,” she said after a moment’s pause. “That’s your man, just ahead of us.”

I could have just waited another few minutes and I would have come to the same conclusion myself. He wove in and out of his lane like a man intoxicated, going twenty-five in a thirty-five mile-an-hour zone.

Sidhe: not very good drivers.

I remembered my car ride with Dorian, and the way he’d used his magic to travel from one side of the city to the other in mere moments. The Guardian might have been saving his magic for the blood rites, but he’d hightail it out of here if I didn’t stop him, and quickly.

“Hold on,” I said to Anwynn.

She held up one paw. “Hold on with
what?
”

But I’d already jerked the steering wheel to the side, liberally applying my foot to the gas pedal. My car surged forward, and Anwynn thudded against the door with an “Ooph.” In a few seconds, we were level with the other car. I caught a brief glimpse of an unconscious woman in the back seat, of the Guardian’s surprised face, his mouth formed in a perfect O, before I pulled on the steering wheel again.

My car screeched into his, metal slamming against metal. He tried to correct his path, but it was too late. Both his car and mine lurched off the road and into a park, narrowly avoiding the sturdy trunks of pine trees. I slammed into his sedan once again, just as we hit the top of a slope. My car got the tiniest bit of air before falling to the ground. My teeth snapped together, my jaw aching. That was going to cause hell to my suspension.

The Guardian’s car tipped and then rolled onto its roof, skidding across the green expanse of a lawn before crashing into a picnic table.

I hit the brakes, swerving across the grass before shuddering to a halt.

Anwynn had somehow slipped from the seat and onto the floor, her paws on the seat as though it were a buoy and she was drowning at sea. I could see the whites of her eyes.

“I think I hate you,” she said.

“Hate me later,” I said, kicking my door open and drawing my sword.

The Guardian was already halfway out of his window by the time I got out of my car. He was just too damned quick. A groan came from the woman strapped into the back seat. A swell of relief hit me. Melanie Baker was still alive after that tumble.

The four remaining sprites flitted out of the windows with their master. They were clearly injured from our earlier tussle, but so were Anwynn and I. The Guardian gained his feet before I could reach him, sword in hand.

“Why are you so eager for a second round when the first one clearly treated you so poorly?” he asked.

“Hey,” I said. “Don’t want to be a bother, but you’ve got a little something…right there,” I said, rubbing at my lip.

He touched his lip with his free hand and found blood. He sneered, his bloody teeth making his handsome face suddenly monstrous. “If the only way you can injure me is to run into me with a giant steel machine, I can’t say I’m overly impressed.”

“What’s your name?” I said, keeping my tone light.

“What does it matter?”

“It matters to me.”

“Lethenan,” he said.

“Lethenan,” I said, letting his name roll around on my tongue, “why Grian? Why try to free her? You could attach yourself to other Sidhe. You don’t need to do this, to restore her to any semblance of power. Her era is over.”

“Because she was good to me, and because I’m one of the Le Fays,” he said. “Not all our family was fond of our leadership, but at least we had it. Do you know what it’s been like since you locked our Queen away? Our family has been beset by infighting. We’ve fallen into disarray, and I know the other families are laughing at us.”

One of the Le Fays. “So you’re related to Kailen.” I circled him a little, testing his guard. He kept the car at his back, keeping Anwynn and me from flanking him.

“Distantly, at best,” Lethenan said.

But I could see it now, in the eyes, the jaw. The family resemblance. “And what about Kailen? What about your King?”

His eyes went wild, and I recognized Grian in him. “A king in exile is no king at all.” And then he leapt forward before I could attempt any further reasoning.

The sprites scattered, two in each direction.

I danced out of the way of his first blow, my feet surprisingly light after my injuries. I darted forward, slashing. The world around me blurred and I felt the stir of the magic within me, sustaining my strength.

He blocked me, but barely.

I fell into the rhythm of it, pushing him back toward the car, forcing him to give ground. Every step back he took was an exercise in balance on this uneven ground. He could catch a stone, a twig, and that moment’s hesitation would afford me a chance to strike.

He thrust at my chest and I blocked him easily. I was doing better than last time. I was doing
way
better. I might actually win this thing.

But that was when I realized, the reason I was doing so well was because it was just me against Lethenan. A quick glance to my left told me that Anwynn was fighting two of them. That left two more unaccounted for.

As I ducked beneath another blow, I saw them. They were prodding an injured and sleepy Melanie Baker from the inside of the car. She had the mark of the blood rite on her forehead, half-covered by graying hair. The vial of unicorn-purified water still weighed the inside of my pocket. I had to end this, quickly, before Lethenan and his minions shoved a mortal into the middle of this fight.

I feinted to the left with my sword, and as Lethenan moved to block it, I struck out with my foot, using his momentum to trip him and send him sprawling toward the ground. I battered his blade with mine as he fell, knocking it out over the grass, out of reach.

In an instant, I had my sword at his throat. “I always think second tries wind up being better than the first ones, don’t you?”

He coughed and turned his head a little to the side.

I followed his gaze. Just as I had the blade to Lethenan’s throat, the sprites had their needle blades to Melanie’s throat. I looked for Anwynn and found her snapping at the remaining two sprites.

“Is it really worth it?” Lethenan said. I’d cut a thin line across his forehead during our fight, and the blood dripped toward his eyes. “Is keeping Grian imprisoned really worth being the cause of a mortal’s death?”

The sprites jabbed their tiny swords at Melanie’s neck, making her wince.

Well, that didn’t quite make sense. “But if I don’t stop you, you’ll kill that woman anyways. And if you kill her now, you won’t be able to complete the daemon geas.”

Lethenan only laughed, and he
definitely
reminded me of Grian when he did so, his laughter full of dulcet, bell-like tones. It made a shiver run up my spine. I was
really
glad Kailen didn’t laugh like that. “This city is full of mortals. There will always be another for the blood rites.”

I looked to Melanie again. Her eyes were wide, and her lips trembled, but she gave me the slightest of nods and glanced down. I followed her gaze and saw a razor-edged piece of glass from the broken window gripped between her fingertips.

Just a couple months of being a Changeling and I was already forgetting—mortals could be pretty goddamned tough.

I leapt toward her, aiming for the sprite on her left, just as Melanie let out a cry and slashed at the sprite on her right. Both sprites fluttered to the ground.

“How are you feeling?” I asked her, before realizing what a stupid question that was.

She opened her mouth to reply.

Lethenan barreled into my side, tackling me like a football player. My right side hit the ground hard, all my wounds reopening, my bruises screaming. Something
crunched
beneath me, wetness seeping through my jacket.

The unicorn-purified water.

Only one way left to end the blood rite, only one way left to save Melanie’s life. And I shouldn’t have been worrying about that right at the moment, because I was pinned beneath a man who very clearly wanted me dead.

I grabbed my sword and tried to bring it to bear. Lethenan slammed the heel of his palm into my wrist. The hilt fell from my nerveless fingers as pain exploded in my arm. I fumbled for it, but he reached it first. His fingers wrapped around the hilt and I couldn’t get a grip on it as he lifted it high.

Over my chest. Over my heart.

A big, dark shape jumped onto Lethenan’s back and dug teeth into his shoulder. The two sprites still harried Anwynn, stabbing her, but she paid them no mind. She only clung to Lethenan, clawing. I could have bought her a thousand televisions in that moment (and it’s a good thing I don’t actually make purchasing decisions in the thick of battle).

Lethenan reeled and fell away from me, screaming. Anwynn pinned him on his back, his blood dripping from her jaws. He writhed and yelled, but couldn’t get away.

Anwynn met my gaze, her eyes cold. “Just say the word, boss.” She wanted to do it. She wanted to savage this man, to taste his blood, to kill him.

And I couldn’t let her.

I picked my sword up from the ground. “No,” I said. “This is my duty. I won’t let someone else do it for me.” I didn’t want to do this, and he was related, however distantly, to Kailen. But if I didn’t, then Melanie—a mortal who had nothing to do with any of this—would die. I couldn’t let that happen. Not on my watch.

Anwynn stepped off of his chest as I approached. I stood over Lethenan. He was a mess of blood and tattered skin. For a moment, I hesitated, hoping that he would find some new store of energy, that he would attack and give me some excuse to feel more righteous.

He only glared at me. “Do it,” he said. “Get it over with. This is what my actions have earned me, is it not?”

I sank my blade into his chest, into his heart, the sword entering his body as easily as if it were clay. The breath went out of him—slowly at first, and then all at once. The two sprites who had been harassing Anwynn flitted away with little, frightened cries.

When I glanced up, I saw the mark on Melanie’s forehead glow briefly before it disappeared. All the fight, the energy, went out of me in a rush, leaving me shaky and lightheaded. Anwynn and I exchanged glances. “You know what?” I told her. “I fucking
hate
being one of the Sidhe.”

And for once, she had no reply.

I pulled the blade free from Lethenan’s chest, staggering backward. I took me a moment to regain my balance. “Do you…uh…need a ride home?” I asked Melanie.

“I’ll find my own way, thanks,” she said. She eyed my grushound with a certain amount of distrust, and I couldn’t blame her. Anwynn looked like a bloody, angry bear.

As soon as she’d disappeared behind some trees, I picked up Lethenan’s feet. “Help me with the body,” I said to Anwynn. She obliged by seizing his shirt with her teeth. A Sidhe body hanging out in the mortal world would raise too many questions.