Frost Burned

“I already destroyed the cuffs,” he told me, holding it out. “So I don’t need it. I’m not a swordsman, and you’re going into enemy territory dangerously unarmed. I don’t know Asil, and Honey doesn’t like you. You may need something.”

“Asil is Bran’s, he will defend me,” I told him. I didn’t take the sword. I’ve had some weapons training in karate classes, but I’ve also read the stories about the Dark Smith of Dronheim.

“Which is more than you can say about Honey,” Tad groused. “Maybe you should take me.”

I shook my head.“I don’t want to leave either Honey or Asil with the kids. Honey might lose it and kill someone—I’d rather it be the vampires than the kids. Asil

is not entirely stable. If something does happen here and he had to kill someone, it could be worse than Honey losing it. This visit with Marsilia shouldn’t be dangerous.” If Hao was not lying. “Can you discern lies?” Some fae could, some couldn’t—though they themselves could not lie.

“Not with vampires,” he admitted.

“Vampires are tricky,” I agreed instead of saying, “Me either.” “But I think Hao was serious about Marsilia taking action—which makes me suspect that we are dealing with something that directly threatens the vampires after all. She wouldn’t stir herself on our behalf unless there was something big in it for her.” That “I think” kept it from being a lie. If he thought I could read Hao’s truth, he’d be less likely to argue. But I was pretty sure Hao had not been lying.

Who gains, Asil had asked me, if the pack is gone from the TriCities? Not Marsilia, I’d assured him. Because Marsilia benefited from our pack. No one wanted to take on Adam—and because Marsilia and Adam had cooperated a time or two, people thought that we cooperated more with the vampires than we really did. Adam didn’t object because he felt it kept the riffraff out.

But that meant one of her enemies might come after the pack in order to weakenher. She’d already withstood one attempt to take over her territory—and we of the Columbia Basin Pack had supported her. “I should be safe enough,” I told Tad. “Honey might not like me much, but she is loyal to Adam, and she is impressive. And of the werewolves we have here, she’s the single best fighter. I need you here—you’ll take care of the children, first and foremost. Ben is good for defense if you need it, but I don’t know how he’ll be around kids.” With his four-letter vocabulary and his anger problems, I’d have normally avoided leaving him with children or undefended women. But he was loyal to Adam, and I was confident that he wouldn’t hurt any of the kids even if he might expand their vocabulary in unfortunate directions.

“All right,” Tad said. “All right. But you take the sword.” He held it out again. It looked wicked and wrong in a room filled with Thomas the Tank Engine’s cheery presence.

I made no effort to take it.“I know about your father’s swords.”

Tad laughed.“Yeah, there was a long period of time when Dad was pretty angry with the world. This one is called Hunger, and it needs to taste your blood; then it will serve you—until it tastes another’s blood it likes better. I know you’ve done some weapon forms in karate, but, you’re right, it’s still better not to use it unless you have to. You’ll never know when it might prefer someone else—and since you aren’t fae, it will be even less inclined to stay with you. However. It will kill vampires in a way a normal sword cannot. It will also eat magic—items or spells, though from my experience it is pretty slow.” He looked at me. “And there’s still that fae assassin running around when she should be dead. I don’t know for sure that this sword will do anything to her, but it’s more likely to incapacitate her than a knife, a bullet, or even a werewolf is.”

He held the sword out again, and I took it gingerly.

“Use it to cut yourself to bind it to you. I’d recommend forearm or calf—and be careful, it’s really, really sharp.”

So I touched my left forearm to the blade—and it zapped me a good one as it sliced into the skin. It felt like magic turned to electricity—like touching a hot wire on a fence.

Tad frowned.“That’s not supposed to happen. Let’s try this.”

He pulled out a pocketknife and cut his index finger. He got a few drops of blood flowing, then pressed his finger on the still-bleeding cut on my forearm. I winced and winced again when he took hold of my hand that held the sword and guided it to taste of our mingled blood.

This time there was no zap of magic but a gentle dance of power through my body.

“That’s better,” he said. “Now you should be able to sheathe the blade just by thinking about it.”

He was right. In an instant, the blade had vanished, leaving what looked like a random lump of pitted metal.

“If the Gray Lords were mad about the walking stick—” I said—the lump of metal’s residual magic made my forearm buzz all the way to my elbow.

“Let’s just say that it would be better if you give it back to me as soon as you return—and I intend to give it back to my father at the earliest opportunity. This isn’t like Peace and Quiet; Hunger is a major artifact, and the fae lords won’t be happy to find that it is in your hands—particularly as you gave another fae artifact to Coyote.”

I jerked my head up to look him in the eyes, and he grinned.“Dad told me. He had to tell a few of the fae because they knew you had the walking stick, and they wanted it back in the worst way.”

I started to put it into the pocket of Kyle’s sweats when Tad stopped me. “You aren’t really going to wear those to meet with Marsilia are you?”

“Right,” I said. “I’ll go look in Kyle’s closet.”

Kyle’s closet yielded a pair of jeans that were tight but not unbearably so and a blue sweater that Tad picked out. I hoped I wasn’t stealing Kyle’s favorite clothes. I got downstairs, and Honey, still in wolf form, and Asil waited for me.

Asil handed me a coat.

It was a good coat, and it fit. More importantly, it had a pocket big enough for the fae artifact that was sometimes a sword, so I didn’t have to keep it stuffed in the too-tight jeans.

Asil drove Warren’s truck, with Honey beside him—she wasn’t happy about that, but I didn’t like her any more than she liked me. That she was mourning Peter, whom I liked very much, just made me more uncomfortable around her. Let Asil deal with her and vice versa.

I drove Marsilia’s Mercedes. We’d take the truck back and leave the car with Marsilia. That would get it out of my hands, and anything else that happened to it would be her fault. Tad had had to bend the trunk more to get it to latch. Now the trunk looked like a tree had fallen on it, which didn’t improve the car’s appearance at all. I’d moved my gun from the car to the truck, but I planned on leaving it there. If I was reduced to shooting at the vampires tonight, I might as well shoot myself and get it over with.

Thomas Hao led the procession in an inconspicuous white Subaru Forester with California plates. I thought we were going to the seethe right up until he turned in the wrong direction at the Keene roundabout, taking us away from the TriCities.

I hesitated, driving an extra round on the roundabout. If he was from out of town, as the California plates indicated, he might have gotten lost. When I could see him again, the vampire had pulled to the side of the road and was waiting for us.

If he’d taken a wrong turn, he’d figure it out when we ran out of town and ended up out in the countryside, I decided. If not—then I’d guess we were meeting Marsilia somewhere else. It didn’t make me happy, but I wasn’t unhappy enough to turn back to Kyle’s.

I pulled out behind Hao, and Asil followed me. When he drove past the big hayfields without slowing, then turned to take us farther out into West Nowhere, I figured that we weren’t going to the seethe and took out Gabriel’s sister’s phone—which I still had—and called Sylvia on Tony’s phone.

“We’re not going to Marsilia’s,” I told her. “We’re out on Highway 224 headed toward Benton City. I’ll give you another call when I know more.”