Before I could start to summon Faerie flame, however, Talus landed next to us. He was supporting O’Malley, who was covered in blood from an ugly bullet wound clean through his left lung. It looked like the delay had been Talus healing him enough to keep him alive.
MacDougall was less lucky, and his corpse, slowly leaking from multiple bullet wounds, floated behind Talus until Tamara gently took him into her arms.
“I have him stabilized,” Talus said quietly, “but I need somewhere warm and sterile to make sure he makes it.”
“The colony?” I asked. I knew there was a doctor among the goblins who paid allegiance to Talus there, but he shook his head.
“With your girlfriend and our witness on the Clan mess there, I don’t want to draw attention to them,” he told us. “With her a traitor”—he pointed at Laurie—“I don’t know who I can trust in the Court.”
The answer was obvious to me after a moment’s thought, and I shook my head at Talus.
“Eric,” I suggested.
“I’m not even sure of him,” Talus replied, and I shook my head at him again.
“Eric is like me,” I reminded him. “His loyalty is neither to the Court nor breakable.” Many Keepers bore fealty, just like a Vassal, though not hereditary like a Vassal, to the Queen or another member of the High Court.
In Eric’s case, his fealty was to Queen Mabona, the same as me. His loyalty could not be broken without killing him.
While my comment earned me confused looks from Celine and Tamara, it bought an instant relieved smile of acknowledgement from Talus, who nodded. “Call him,” he ordered me, and turned his attention back to O’Malley.
Obedient to a fault, I pulled out my own cellphone and started to dial.
31
THE BACKGROUND NOISE when Eric answered his phone was loud, the burbling chaos of Friday night at a bar. The sound of a band playing was almost lost under the dull roar of conversation.
“What’s going on, Jason?” he asked abruptly. “I’m busy—I have a full house here.”
“We need help,” I told him. “Talus and I went after the vampire den—we have dead and wounded and a prisoner.”
For a moment or so, all I could hear on the line was the background noise. “A prisoner?” he asked finally.
“One of ours was with them,” I said simply. “She’d betrayed us and was helping them evade our ops. We have no transport and Talus can’t heal our wounded in an alley covered in snow.”
“Where are you?” the Keeper asked, and I told him the name of the hotel. “I’ll be there,” he promised, and hung up.
We spent what seemed like forever but probably was less than fifteen minutes waiting in the cold as Talus, the only one of us with any healing abilities, struggled to keep O’Malley alive in the horrendously adverse conditions.
Then an old Volkswagen minibus—the stereotypical hippie van, though this one was woodlands camouflage–colored, not tie-dyed—whipped around the corner and skidded to a halt at the end of the alley.
The back door of the bus popped open, and Tarva, the blond nymph waitress from the Manor, jumped out. She wore a long black coat that covered her from neck to toe, probably because she was still wearing the nothing that passed for a uniform at her job underneath. The boxy bullpup assault rifle she carried with consummate professionalism held my attention more than memories of her in tightly scandalous clothing.
“Come on, let’s get you all in out of the cold,” she said quietly.
I started to move to help the others with the wounded, but Talus simply gestured. The two bodies floated into the van under his Power. He supported O’Malley and Celine helped Tamara into the van while Tarva and I took up the rear. I pushed Laurie in front of me, and Tarva eyed the hag, clearly wondering why she was bound.
“Everyone in?” Eric asked as I closed the door.
“Yes,” I replied shortly, and looked forward to see the gnome look into his mirror. At the sight of Laurie, his jaw dropped.
“She’s the traitor?” he demanded incredulously.
“Yes,” Talus answered flatly. “Now, I have to focus if I’m going to save George’s life, so if everyone can be quiet, I think we’d all appreciate it.”
The drive back to the Manor passed in silence with Talus bent over O’Malley, fully focused on saving the older gentry’s life. The rest of his team sprawled in their seats in various levels of exhaustion. I kept an eye on Laurie, who was being way too calmly docile and creepily silent for my peace of mind.
When we got back to the Manor, Eric maneuvered the minivan in behind the motel and turned it off, looking back at the rest of us.
“Rooms 114 through 118 never get rented,” he told us. “They aren’t actually rooms; it’s a small office and storage space.” He tossed me a key and paused. “There’s also access to a morgue-style freezer under the space,” he said quietly. That shocked me—though it made sense, seeing as how fae bodies would be problematic if a human coroner got his or her hands on one.
“Tarva and I have to get back to the bar,” Eric continued. “Can you lot take care of yourselves for a few hours?”
“Yes, we can,” Talus said quickly. “Thank you, Eric. I owe you a boon.”
The gnome nodded sharply in acknowledgement of the formal debt Talus was offering, and exited the van. With a smile and nod all around, Tarva opened the back door and followed him.
“Let’s get George inside,” Talus instructed.
“I’ve got Frankie and MacDougall,” Celine said softly, the Fury scooping up the two bodies as she said so. “Is the way clear?”
“I’ll go grab the door,” I volunteered. Leaving Laurie with Tamara, I got out of the truck, checking the badly lit alley and making sure no one was standing at the transit station across the street, watching us.
The motel parking lot was dark and quiet except for Eric’s bar on the other side of it, and no one seemed to coming in or out of the bar right now.
I opened the door to room 118, the closest of the four Eric had pointed out, and shouted back toward the van. “The door is open; bring them over.”
Celine was first, the dead bodies of our friends sadly being the most noticeable and attention-grabbing portion of our group. Talus followed, supporting O’Malley, who was now at least semiconscious and paying attention to things around him.
Tamara and Laurie stepped out of the van, but as the nightmare was stepping down from the van, Laurie finally acted.
Her hands still cuffed together, she joined them into a double fist and slammed it into Tamara’s leg before the other fae could react. Standing by the door to the motel, almost twenty feet away, I heard Tamara’s thighbone snapping.
The dark-skinned fae crumpled, falling from the minivan to the concrete of the parking lot as Laurie bolted. She timed it perfectly, as a c-train started to come rumbling up to the platform as I dropped the key to take off after her.
With cold iron running through her veins, she had no powers, but she was still fast. I was faster, just barely, and starting from much farther behind. None of the others could react at all, tied down with wounded and dead, so it was all up to me.
If she escaped, we would probably never catch her again. Certainly not in time to help stop the coming catastrophe looming over the city. I put on an extra burst of speed, trying desperately to catch her.
I knew it wasn’t going to be enough, and then a sudden flash of cold came over me. Between one breath and the next, my world was even colder than the frozen street I was running across. When it passed, and I breathed again, Laurie was inches from me—within arm’s reach.