Winter (The Manhattan Exiles) (20 page)

“Run, children,” he ordered.

The street had become a river of frightened mortals. They muddled back and forth,
scattering this way and that, uncertain. Once Gabby would have found their fear contemptible.

Now, as she tried to
regain balance on leaden limbs, she only envied them their innocence, and could not remember the courage of contempt.

Michael Smith was not a large man, but he walked with a warrior’s grace and confidence. He paid no attention to the mortals scrambling out of his path.

“Mistress.” Barker flicked his wrist.

The packet of cigarettes slid across the ground, bumping Gabby on her flank.

“Remember.” His fierce yellow eyes, now glazing, met her own. “Remember, Mistress. You’re a mouse. Safe, safe, as a mouse.”

Malachi made a noise that might have been protest, but Gabby barely heard him.

Safe, safe.
For a while, she’d forgotten, thought herself more than she was.
A mouse. Only a mouse.

She seized the bun
dle of paper and sweet tobacco between her jaws, and ran.

The mouse nearly made it into the gutter before she was captured. Strong fingers grasped her by the tail, plucking her from safety. She clawed at the air, squeaking around the treasure in her teeth.

Her desperate squirming did no good. The fingers folded her into a deep, dark cave of fabric.

She rolled and squirmed, trying to climb free, but she couldn’t find an opening.

Resigned, she let go her prize, and began gnawing at the fabric trap.

“My lord fay.”

The
voice was low and harsh. The mouse shivered over the grating tones even as she dug and snapped at threads, spreading a tiny hole towards freedom.

“
Barker, get up! Barker! Lolo, help me!”

Shrill and familiar,
those cries: the young female’s plea. The mouse flattened her ears against the fear.

“
My lord fay, you’ve the blood of mortals in your pocket. I need it back.”

“
By what right? You trespass on my law and land, bare weapon in my presence. Take another step, mortal, and my man will shoot you were you stand.”

Light split the darkness, and the mouse peered through the tear she’d managed. It was exit enough for her own escape, but she was somehow loa
the to leave her sweet treasure behind.

“
‘Men would be angels, and angels gods.’”

From her vantage the mouse looked directly into the human’s face as he spoke. His soft eyes were sorrowful as he lifted a long, thin metal tooth in both hands.

The mouse didn’t like the tooth. She retreated, cowering in her cave.

“
It’s a mistake,” the human continued sadly. “A mistake to step out of your place. Men are only men, and angels fall.”

“
Barker!”

As quick as that the tooth bit, flashing toward the ground. The ground spat back, angry.

Gun
, the mouse thought uneasily.

She peered through her little hole in time to see the sad human stagger, one hand pressed against his center. Blood misted the air, and dripped from the shining tooth.

She had a moment to register the smell of fresh gore, but the human lunged again, striking. Her world gasped, and jerked, and began to tilt sideways. The square of paper and herb fell against her.

She scrabbled on fabric, trying to gain foothold, but there was a larger tear now beneath her little hole, wet with blood, and it
ripped beneath her weight.

The mouse slipped free. She fell nose over tail, and hit the concrete.

This time, when she fled, no one paid her any attention.

13
. Sanctified

Lolo watched the Prince of Fairies fall, sliding like a doll from Smith’s blade. The sword had pierced Malachi completely through, and it slipped back out of him as if bones and gristle and muscle didn’t matter.

He heard Summer scream. Gabby ran over the toe of Lolo’s shoe and away down Sixth Avenue.

Smith, one hand pressed to the gunshot wound in his side, swung the sword again. It was long and thin, and it whistled through the air.

Sorrow
, Lolo thought, as the seconds ticked by like syrup,
the sword’s called  Sorrow.

Barker rolled to one side, clumsy and slow, like he was drunk or half asleep. The sword missed his throat, but bit deep into his shoulder.

There was a lot of blood on the sidewalk. None of the fay were moving much. Summer had collapsed over her father. Smith was leaking guts but not enough because he was lifting the sword high.

Barker’s
little pistol lay in a spreading puddle of red.

Nobody was really paying much attention to the human kid, and that was just fine.

Lolo picked up the gun. It was slippery and warm in his hand, but he held it firmly.

He spread his feet like Richard had
taught him, relaxed his elbows, and squeezed the trigger gently.

It was a nice gun, probably real expensive, but the kick still knocked him off his feet and the gun fell from his hand. That was okay, because he’d counted the seconds just right, and Smith fell before he did, more blood squirting from his face, just like in the movies.

Lolo heard police sirens. He hoped there was an ambulance not far behind, although he wasn’t really sure there was anything human doctors could do for dying fairies.

He slipped a little in
gore before he managed to find his feet. Smith didn’t move. Neither did Malachi, or Barker. Summer still sobbed on her father’s chest.

Sorrow lay in the gutter, gleaming.

Lolo reached for the sword, but as he did another hand closed over his own.

“
Not so fast,” Katherine Grey said, smiling as her fingers ground around his bones. “I’ll take that.”

Lolo wasn’t as good a thief as Richard, but he was meaner. He couldn’t sneak away with the rapier, but he could bite Katherine on the wrist as he stepped hard on her foot.

She yelped, first in shock, and then in rage as Lolo spat a chunk of her flesh into the street and went back for more. She jerked away, trying to shake him off, and she let go of the sword.

Lolo had his prize. He whooped in triumph.

The Grey Lady showed sharp, inhuman teeth. She lifted her hands. A gleaming white haze grew around her fingers.

“
Run!” Summer said, appearing suddenly at Lolo’s side.

Lolo couldn’t look away from Katherine. He’d never seen real
, dangerous magic before. Winter didn’t let him watch.

“
Run!” Summer screamed. She had him by the braids, yanking hard. “This way!”

It was the look on the Grey Lady’s face that decided Lolo: fierce, cold, and entirely alien.

Lolo realized he was little more than a blip in her world, little more than a cockroach on her potato chips, an irritant to be stomped and forgotten.

He ran.

Summer was faster. She’d shed her stupid shoes. She moved with the grace he remembered from snowball fights on the Mall. She might have left him behind but for the tourists blocking her path.

He was better with crowds.

Still, the rapier kept getting in his way. Sorrow didn’t weigh more than a pigeon’s fart, but the blade was long, and Lolo had to keep shifting it around as he ran.

Lolo expected Katherine Grey to be breathing down his neck, all
smoky hands and pointed teeth, but he was wrong.

“
Summer!” he shouted. “Summer, slow down!”

He could barely see her around the suits and bargain-hunters, a tangle of long hair and pink froth. She glanced over her shoulder. Her face was spattered with blood, and her stare was more wild than aware.

“Summer!
Samhradh
!” The Gaelic felt strange in his mouth. “If you leave me alone with this stupid fairy sword, I swear I’ll tell Siobahn you’ve been sneaking out nights to the hotel bar!”

A woman lugging twelve shopping bags shot Lolo and Sorrow a puzzled look, but none of the native New Yorkers spared him a glance.

Summer slowed abruptly. Lolo saw he’d finally managed to catch her attention.

“
Mama,” she said, grey eyes welling. “I have to get to Mama!”

“
No.” Lolo puffed the last few feet. He grabbed Summer by the elbow, drawing her abruptly into the shadow of a sky-rise. “That’s the last place we’re headed.”

“
But - “

“
No way! Don’t even think it. That’s the last place the sword and the rubies will be safe. How much you want to bet that Grey bitch is already there, just waiting for us to run back to base.”

Tears
ran down Summer’s cheeks, mixing with blood. She rubbed a hand over her nose, adding fairy snot to the mess.

“
What if she means to hurt Mama, what if Gabby was right all along? I should have listened. This is all my fault!”

“
No, it ain’t.” Lolo let the rapier tilt to the sidewalk as he scanned the street. “And seems to me your mom can probably put the smack down on Katherine Grey, 'specially since there’s no magic iron sword messing with her mojo.”

“
It’s not magic.” Summer eyed Sorrow and chewed on her lip. “It’s just sanctified iron.”

“
Uh-huh. How come it’s not messing with you?”

“
Winter and I are different.” Summer sniffed wetly. “Papa says -” She swallowed hard. “Papa says it’s because we were born on this side of the Way. Iron doesn’t affect us. We’re different.”

“
Okay.” Still watching the street traffic, Lolo held out his free hand. “Give them to me.”

Summer sniffed again, hesitated, and decided to play innocent.
“What?”

“
The stones.” Lolo wiggled his fingers. “C’mon. I saw you snatch ‘em before you ran. You’re good, Summer, but you’re not that good.” He noticed she was beginning to shiver, and tried not to feel sorry for her. “Although I’ll give you kudos for smarts in the middle of a shit-fest.”

She crossed her arms.
“Why should I give them to you?”

“
Because Winter told
me
to keep them safe. Savvy? And,” he added just to punch it up, “I’ve got a plan.”

Summer sighed. Lolo knew she was shaken when she didn’t argue.

“Fine. Here.” She dropped a small black tube of Chanel lipstick into his hand.

“
Seriously? You, too?”

S
ummer shrugged. “It’s a simple Cant.”

“
What about . . . what's it . . . the laws of physics?”

“
How should I know? I’m failing Chemistry. Lolo, people are starting to stare, and
no one
stares in Manhattan. Any second now, and someone’ll call 911. What’s your plan?”

“
Over there.” He pointed with his chin. “Follow me. And watch out for the sword; it’s sharp.”

“
You watch out.”

But she followed him across
Sixth Avenue and onto a side street. Lolo’s ‘plan’ squatted at the foot of a glass cloud-scraper. The blue copper turret that had caught his eye shone even in the weak winter sunlight.

Summer followed his gaze.

“St. Francis?”

“
It’s a church, isn’t it?”

“
So?” Summer regarded the facade dully.

“
Look, it’s even got carved angels on it. And a saint painted over the doorway. If anything ‘stinks of the old church’, it’ll be this place.”

“
You want to hide in a church?”

“
Not hide, regroup. In a safe place.” He shrugged. “When’s the last time any of your kind attended Mass? I’m not even sure you won’t burst into flame the minute you go inside.”

“
Don’t be stupid!” Still hugging herself, Summer stormed up the stairs. She set her hand on the church’s black iron gate.

“
Is it locked?”

Summer nudged the gate. It swung sideways, creaking.

“No, but the doors probably are.”

“
Try. Unless you’re afraid of the giant crosses on the door.” Lolo watched the fay girl with interest. “Are you?”

“
No!”

Spine stiff, Summer laced her fingers around a brass handle. She tugged. The heavy double doors split soundlessly. Summer slid through the crack.

Lolo followed.

“
Wow,” he breathed. “This place is legit.”

“
Pretty,” Summer agreed. “It smells like Christmas.”

“
Incense,” Lolo explained. He let the door close at his back, then simply stood and admired.

The inside of the church was bright and white, all carved pillars and arches touched with enameled blues and painted golds. Stained glass saints looked down onto long, polished wooden pews.

“‘Queen of the order of friars minor’.” Lolo read the words painted on the ceiling over the altar. “What do you suppose that means?”

Summer tapped a bare foot.

“I have no idea,” she replied. “The ‘pray for us’ bit is pretty straight forward, and Mama’s the only queen I know. Don’t touch anything, Lolo.”

“
Why?” He eyed a cluster of flickering votives, fairly confident that the tiny cups housing the candles were real gold. “I’m not the one might melt or fall over dead or whatever.”

Summer dashed a hand across her eyes.
“I told you, Winter and I are different. Besides, Papa and Barker are
not
dead. They can’t be.”

Lolo figured if they weren’t yet, they soon would be, but he knew better than to say so out loud.

Summer rubbed tears from her eyes again. Then she strode barefoot down the center of the sanctuary, bumping a long finger against the backs of the pews as she went.

“
Look at this,” she marveled, tilting her head to stare high above the altar. “Some human built that mural. I bet it’s pretty old. I bet that’s the Queen of Friars Minor.”

Lolo looked up at the gigantic portrait,
then glanced over his shoulder. “Where do you suppose everyone is? It’s awfully quiet.”

Summer turned around. She stood under the mural and looked back along the pews and golden pillars.

“Aren’t human churches supposed to be restful places? I like it.” She considered Lolo. “You’ve blood all over you.”

“
So do you.” But he looked down at his sticky hands, then past to the stains on his pants. “Shit.”

“
There’s probably a bathroom.” She sniffed. “We should clean up.”

“
Shit,” Lolo repeated. “I shot him. In the
face
. That’s murder.”

“
You had no choice.” Summer met his stare. He supposed she was trying to look brave, but her teeth chattered a little. “You had no choice.”

Lolo wiped his palms on his shirt, but the blood had dried and wouldn’t come off. He waited for sickness or shame to rise, but felt nothing.

“Yeah, a bathroom.” He turned, searching. Sorrow bumped against the back of a pew, ringing. “Shit. Shit.” Now his gut began to turn sour. He swallowed fear away before he fell in a quivering Jell-O shot on the floor. “Shit.”

“
Give it to me.”

“
What?”

Summer held out her hands.
“You can’t wear a sword through Manhattan. Eventually someone will notice. Give it to me. I’ll make it something else.”

“
Something else?”

“
Like the rubies,” she reminded him in a whisper. Her eyes were wide, lashes clotted with drying tears. “So no one will see.”

He wasn’t sure why he hesitated. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Winter’s sister; he’d probably trust her with his life, if it came down to it. But, really, his life was worth nothing when weighted against a magic sword.

“I want to carry it. Make it something I can carry.”

She frowned at him. Over her head the angels in the mosaic sparkled. There was a box on the altar, a golden box
fastened in the shape of a many-windowed church and studded with smooth jewels.

Lolo wanted to press his thumb into the gold, see if the metal bent.

“You have the rubies,” Summer said. “And the sword. Smarter to split them up. Just . . . in case.”