“I don’t think so,” I told him. “But I have bounced across many of the courts in the southern US; we may have met then.”
Oisin laughed.
“Kilkenny, how old do you think I am?” he asked.
I looked at him, puzzled. A noble fae was likely older than he looked, but Oisin did look very young.
“Sixty?” I hazarded a guess.
“Add a century,” he told me. “I have lived a hundred and seventy-one summers upon this world and spent the last hundred of those among the Hunt.
“By blood and by my Vassalage to our Queen, I have the right to leave the Hunt,” he continued, “but if I did, I could never return. While I am bound to the Hunt, my ability to travel apart from it is limited, and the Hunt travels outside Europe rarely and never as a whole.
“I have not set foot in the southern United States since Calebrant led us, some two score years ago,” he explained. “So, no, I have not seen you in the Courts of the South. And yet you are familiar.” He shrugged and finally stood to join his half-sister.
“You are a mystery, changeling and Vassal of my Queen,” he told me. “Someday, you and I may work out the answer to that mystery, but as I said, my movements apart from my duties to the Hunt are limited. I must return my sister and myself to the Old World.”
“Pass my respects and thanks to the Queen,” I told them, somewhat grudgingly. I was grateful She’d saved me, but if She hadn’t dragged me into being a Vassal and trying to investigate this plot She feared, I wouldn’t have been beaten on in the first place!
“We will,” Niamh promised, and then laid her hand on her brother’s arm. Oisin bowed his head to me, stepped Between and was gone.
21
THE REST of Sunday passed quietly. Still stiff, bruised and dizzy, I wasn’t up for much. We threw in a movie and cuddled, talking of inconsequential things. To be more precise, Mary talked of inconsequential things—growing up in Calgary, putting up with her brother becoming a doctor, working in a gaming store, that sort of thing.
Every so often, her talk would touch on Tarvers, and she would be quiet for a while, both of us pretending to only pay attention to the movie. There was nothing I could really say or do about the Alpha’s death. I could only hope that something in my investigation into the whole mess with MacDonald would turn up details or evidence I could use to punish Winters for the murder.
In the end, exhaustion from healing claimed me, and Mary helped me to bed, where I promptly passed out.
In the morning, I called my boss.
“How are you doing?” were the first words out of Bill’s mouth. “I called your cell and got an ER nurse; she said you’d been in an accident and she wasn’t sure when you’d be back at work.”
“Stiff, bruised,” I told him honestly. “I got bounced off the front of a car,” I lied, “nothing broken in the end, but I am beaten to shit.”
“You’re a lucky fuck,” he told me. “Look, take today and tomorrow off; come back in Wednesday. We can do without you for two days, and I’d rather you didn’t make things worse.”
“I should be fine to come in tomorrow,” I insisted, knowing that with my natural healing, I would be.
“Did you get the idea this was arguable?” Bill told me with a grunt. “Get off the phone and go rest. I’ll see you Wednesday.”
I thanked him and returned to cuddling Mary. The rest of the morning passed in a gentle fog of cuddling and quiet conversation.
Eventually, however, the time came to go to the funeral for the brother and sister who’d died because I hadn’t warned them fast enough.
Mary helped me into the wheelchair and then to the car. We drove to the small chapel that the Court apparently maintained for their own purposes, like this. The parking lot was mostly full as Mary pulled into an empty stall.
“Let’s leave the wheelchair behind,” I told Mary. “I’d rather not appear weak in front of the Court,” I admitted.
“All right,” she said after eyeing me for a minute. “But I’m not leaving your side, and you’d better lean on me if you need me.”
Still stiff and sore, it took me a minute or so to get out of the car, which allowed me a few good long looks at the black SUV parked next to us—and the stylized K decal in its window.
At least some of the Enforcers were there.
LEANING SOMEWHAT ON MARY, I made my way into the chapel. As soon as we passed through the doors, I knew that no mortal had ever set foot in the building—it would be hard to conceal from the inside that it was probably four or five times as large inside as out and was in no way, shape or form the Christian place of worship it appeared from the outside.
Six hundred feet from entrance to nave, the temple inside shared the same shape as the chapel outside, but that was the end of its resemblance to a mortal church. Unlike the chapel whose shell it occupied, the temple had no internal walls. The entire space was open, four steps leading down to the massive, thirty-feet-on-a-side balefire pit. Today the fire in the pit blazed high and hot, flames licking ten or twelve feet into the air, almost reaching the level of the entrance.
Nine alcoves were cut into the walls on the top level, each centered on a statue and containing a hanging banner. The statues and banners were identical to those in every similar temple in the world, carved and woven to designs that had existed when Rome was born. Each honored one of the Nine, the High Court. We didn’t worship the Powers, per se, but they stood head and shoulders above the rest of us.
As I understood it, none of the High Court were the original holders of their titles, and the statues were of the original Nine. Certainly, the statue in the Queen’s alcove bore no resemblance to Mabona, though the stylized silver tree on the blue banner seemed just right to something in me.
The hall looked half empty, but after a moment’s glance around, I realized that almost all of Calgary’s less than a hundred fae were in the building. A dozen or so shifters other than Mary, presumably friends of Dave and Elena’s, stood on the third level, looking down at the slightly denser crowd on the second level.
The first level was almost empty. Oberis stood closest to the fire, and Talus and Laurie stood next to him. I caught myself glaring at the trio and controlled myself with an effort. It wouldn’t do to betray my current anger at the fae lord in public. Besides, this was neither the place nor the time.
Two more fae, male and female older gentry, stood on the first level with the Lord and his two courtiers. From the family resemblance, they were Dave and Elena’s parents.
The only other occupants of the bottom level of the Hall were two stone biers, each carrying the cloth-wrapped body of one of the two we had come to mourn. I was a little surprised there was enough left of them for that—they had been very close to the claymores when they had detonated.
Mary and I slowly made our way down to the second level, where the fae and changelings gathered. The fourth and topmost level was empty except for a few new arrivals arriving behind us; the third held the shifters and a single pair of black-suited Enforcers. I recognized Percy, Michael’s boss, as one of them and wondered if he’d actually known Dave or Elena, or if MacDonald had just picked names out of a hat to send as a gesture.
When we reached the second level, I caught a few mutters at Mary’s presence—this level was supposed to be limited to fae only. Between my current aggravation with fae protocol and my need to have her to physically lean on, I found the mutters easy to ignore.
I settled into one of the plain chairs that encircled the level with a carefully concealed groan of relief. From one or two sharp glances my way, it wasn’t concealed enough. None of them said anything, though, and the arrival of Eric a moment later silenced any comments anyone would have made.