Momentum gave out and I rolled to a stop, tucking my head under my body and listening to the debris raining down around me. There were a few soft thuds, then silence. The air stank of gasoline, smoke, and melted tar, but no one was screaming; I decided to take that as a good sign. Even so, it was several minutes before I raised my head.
The remains of my car were smoldering in the gate, pinned by the portcullis. The vegetation on all sides was charred and broken, but the gateway itself wasn’t even scratched, and the stones were clean. Whatever spells they’d built into that thing were holding.
“If this was part of the alarm system, I’m going to kill them,” I muttered.
Quentin was where I’d dropped him, head resting on his arm. None of the debris seemed to have hit him; that was a small blessing. I walked over and bent to check his pulse, noting the scrapes scoring his arms and neck. He looked like he’d taken less damage than I had. His pulse was fast, pushed up by panic and adrenaline, but it was there, and it was strong.
“You’re lucky as hell, kid,” I said, brushing the glass away and rolling him onto his back. My hands left bloody prints on his shoulders and upper arms. I straightened, despite the protests from my back and knees, and turned to face the parking lot. And I waited.
I didn’t have to wait long. People are pulled to explosions by an instinctive desire to see something forbidden, and that goes double for the fae. Only a few minutes passed before I heard running footsteps and Jan shouting, “That’s Toby’s car!”
“Well, it was,” I said, even though none of them were close enough to hear me. My hands were starting to seriously hurt. That would have to wait. There’d be time to worry about how badly I was or wasn’t injured later, if I was lucky—time was turning into a limited commodity, and if Quentin and I were targets, it was running out.
Jan crested the rise separating us from the parking lot, Terrie running close behind her. Terrie was panting, one hand pressed against her chest, gaping at the wreckage.
“Oh, my . . .”
“Yes. The car exploded. Can someone pick up Quentin? I’d do it myself, but my knees are killing me.” My desire to get Quentin to safety was warring with the need to collapse into hysterical laughter, and I didn’t think that was a good idea. At least not before I got the two of us inside.
“What happened?”
“Your security system tried to kill us.” I paused, remembering the charge that raced through the air just before the explosion occurred. “Or somebody else did.”
“Are you all right?” Jan ran across the debris-strewn driveway, skidding to a stop a few feet in front of me. Her eyes were enormously wide behind her glasses, making her look more like an overgrown child than the Countess of her own fiefdom.
“I’m better than Quentin. At least I’m awake.” Something was running down the side of my face. I raised my hand to my cheek, touching the dampness. My fingertips came away slick with a mixture of blood, ash, and broken glass. I can’t stand the sight of my own blood. I added the urge to vomit to my already long list of suppressed reactions. “Oh, yeah, I’m fine,” I said, wiping my hand across my lips. “I do this every day.”
Jan moved to take my arm. “Let’s get you inside.”
I licked my lips, grimacing at the taste of blood. “We have to take care of Quentin.”
“Terrie’s got him. It’s all right.”
The taste of my own blood—which was nowhere near empty—seemed to be focusing my thoughts. I frowned, pulling away from Jan, and said, “No. I’ll take care of him.”
“No, you won’t,” said Jan, reclaiming my arm. “You’re barely upright. Let Terrie.”
Grudgingly, I allowed her to guide me, shooting a poisonous look back toward Terrie. “I know how badly he’s hurt. If he’s any worse, we’re going to have words. Understand?”
She looked stunned, but nodded, moving to scoop Quentin off the ground. I watched until I was sure she had him, then turned to Jan, asking, “Has this happened before? This kind of reaction from the security system?”
“No.” She shook her head. “The gate’s Coblynau design. It’s perfectly weighted. This can’t have happened.”
I looked at her flatly, asking, “Just like the lights can’t go out?”
“Yes! Just like . . .” She stopped, staring at me. “You can’t be serious.”
“I can. I’ve said as much to Alex. Whatever’s doing this isn’t a what—it’s a who, because this has to be an inside job.” I gestured to the gate, trying to ignore the blood drying on my cheeks. “No monster did that. Monsters aren’t that subtle. This was a trap.”
“Oh.” Jan closed her eyes. “Oh, oak and ash.”
“Yeah.”
Someone tried to kill us; the gate proved it. Even if the fences were under a “no damage” enchantment, they should have been dirtied when the car blew up—should have, but weren’t. There was no reason to put that sort of spell on a building fixture. A normal accident would have attracted the police and been covered by their insurance. Mine wasn’t normal, and I was willing to bet that if the police were called by one of the neighboring businesses, they’d be quietly sent away. This was a duck hunt, and neither Quentin nor I was the one holding the rifle.
“Looks like someone didn’t bother filing for their hunting license,” I muttered.
“What?” Jan flashed me a pained look.
“Never mind.” I know how it feels to realize that someone in your family is a killer. Devin and I were family once. “Family” really means “the ones that can hurt you the most. ” So yeah, I understood; I would even have pitied her, if I’d had the time. There’s never time for sympathy when you need it the most.
“Your car . . .”
“It’s not important,” I said, with a small shake of my head. Terrie and Quentin were long since out of sight. “I’m going to be fine. Let’s just get inside before Quentin wakes up and thinks he’s been kidnapped.”
Exhaustion was rolling over me in a wave. I just wanted to crawl into a bed—any bed—and stay there until this was all over. Maybe I’d get lucky and somebody else would show up to take care of everything. If I was lucky, I wouldn’t have to lift a finger to bring us to a simple, happy ending. Unfortunately, the sinking feeling in my stomach said my luck had finally run out.
FOURTEEN
“STOP SQUIRMING,” GORDAN SNAPPED, dabbing at my cheek with a cotton swab. She was holding a pair of stainless steel tweezers in her other hand. I eyed them warily. “You’ve got glass ground pretty deep in here. Do you want me to get it out, or do you want to spend the rest of your life looking like an order of meatloaf surprise?”
I glared at her, struggling to hold still. It was turning into a pitched battle between my nerves and the pain. The pain was winning. “That hurts.”
“Suck it up,” Quentin said. Gordan had already treated him, snickering about how much fun it was to watch a pretty boy mop the road with his face. It didn’t seem to have affected her work; she’d sterilized and bound his wounds quickly, even while she was mocking him. He was sitting on the counter, a cup of soup in his hands and a swath of gauze taped across his forehead, pushing his bangs up in a jagged line. He looked like he was recovering from his first bar fight.
I didn’t care; I was just glad he was awake. “Don’t make me come over there.”
“Gordan wouldn’t let you.”
“He’s right for once; I wouldn’t.” She smiled, showing the points of her teeth. “And you should be glad this hurts. The only way it wouldn’t hurt is if you were already dead.”
“Just be careful,” I said, hunching my shoulders. I still suspected her; I had no logical reason not to, save for the fact that I couldn’t figure out why she’d have killed her own best friend.