I should go with him. But I was exhausted mentally and physically. The idea of coming to work and doing something I knew how to do was very appealing. At the very least, I was unlikely to have spider-fae lay eggs in my feet if I was taking apart carburetors.
“Mary Jo was going to come with us to the seethe,” Adam said. “If you stay here, I’d ask that you keep her with you here for the day.”
He met my eyes and waited. This was not an “I want to keep you safe, little woman” request. This was the Alpha of our pack not wanting to let one of his pack members who may or may not have put herself in the sights of a supernatural serial killer work alone in a place where she would predictably be found.
“She can do paperwork.” Adam offered up Mary Jo to my least favorite job without evidence of a qualm.
After a few terrible incidents, Mary Jo and I were coming to an odd sort of acceptance of each other. It wasn’t quite friendship, though the possibility was there—more a matter of mutual respect.
“You mean I get to torture her?” I asked.
Adam threw back his head and laughed.
“Of course I’m coming with you,” I told him. “I’ll close the shop for the day.” I glanced at Zee. “If we don’t take a random day off every once in a while, our customers will think they are in charge.”
“Passt,” said Zee, the satisfaction in his tone conveying the meaning of the German word, which meant I probably wouldn’t bother looking it up in the Langenscheidt’s German-English, English-German Dictionary I kept tucked in a drawer in the office.
“Zee,” I said. “We need to talk about the Soul Taker. What it is. What it’s doing. And how to render it harmless.”
He stared down at his boots. Then he laced his fingers together and stretched them, as if preparing for an arduous task.
“Most artifacts are made with intent,” he said. “On purpose rather than by accident. And if so made, most are crafted by the fae.”
He reached out a hand and pulled the walking stick, my walking stick, from the air. I had been looking at his hands and couldn’t quite pinpoint the moment in which the walking stick had appeared. It felt as if, somehow, the artifact had always been there, in Zee’s hands. He turned it as if examining it, letting the artificial lights overhead illuminate the old wood and silver.
He eventually continued, “Humans can also create magical items, but being mortal, most are not concerned with making something that outlives them. The more conscientious mortals are very concerned, in fact, that nothing they make outlasts them so that they do no unintentional harm.” His face composed itself into something subtly more gentle, as if thinking about someone specific. “A witch’s magic dies when they die, usually. And if not, it fades over time. Humans are rarely able to make true artifacts. There are, outside of the fae and human magic users, few other beings whose magical crafting lends itself into making artifacts.”
Everyone in the garage bay knew all of this. My feet hurt. I was very tired. And, I realized, hungry. I should have let Adam get food earlier. Zee was seldom long-winded, I reminded myself. If he was taking time with this, it was because he thought it was important.
“Among the fae, there have never been many who could make even such a minor artifact as this once was.”
He tapped the walking stick lightly, then spun it. I would never have suspected that the old fae had the skills of a drum major, but he twirled it so fast it blurred.
Still spinning it, he said, “Ariana”—Samuel’s mate—“was one of the best of the makers before she deliberately crippled herself.”
He tossed the walking stick up and caught it.
“Lugh.”
As he spoke that name, a spark of light twinkled in the worked silver that bound the gray wood of the artifact Lugh had crafted who knew how long ago. Possibly Zee had an idea, but I doubted it. The few very old beings I knew tended not to dwell on the past or count the years.
“An artifact is made—and then finished, sealed in its wholeness so it neither gains nor loses magic. Nor can its purpose be changed. Lugh was careless in his later years, though mostly that just meant that his artifacts lost power, became less, and then broke.”
He tossed the walking stick at me without warning. I caught it. Or possibly it came to my hand.
“It is not the case that your walking stick was improperly made,” Zee said. “Extraordinary things happened to it while it was in your hands to change it. To allow it to change.” He looked at me.
“I didn’t mean to,” I said.
I had done something to the walking stick, a lot of somethings that had resulted in the object I held in my hands. I’d used it to kill an immortal monster. I considered that and amended it to multiple immortal monsters—at least one of which might have been considered a god. I’d gifted it to Coyote—which, in retrospect, might not have been the smartest thing I could have done. The walking stick had gained in power, in versatility, and . . . sentience. I didn’t know what it could do, or would do, and neither did anyone else.
“Because there is another way for an artifact to be made.” Zee’s voice was soft. “Worship. Blood. Desperate need—the way that you remade Lugh’s walking stick. Other catalysts include time and belief.”
He reached into one of the pockets in his overalls and pulled out a small metal object. He threw it at Adam, who caught it easily.
Adam opened his palm and I saw a dull gray metal ring. “Heavier than it should be unless it’s made out of lead.”
“Iron,” Zee told him.
I touched it and pulled my finger back with a hiss. It hadn’t hurt exactly, but it left me with a feeling of wrongness and seeking.
I told Adam, “Give that back to him.”
He tossed it back to Zee.
I took Adam’s hands in mine and examined them, turning them. I had no idea what I was looking for and didn’t find anything, but the palms of my own hands itched. Possibly that was still because I’d had spider eggs dug out of them.
“Go wash,” I said. Running water was effective at dispelling magic. It should wash away any taint that foul thing had left behind. “You don’t want any of that sticking to you.”
He didn’t argue or ask what “that” was. As soon as I heard the sound of the faucet in the bathroom being turned on, some of my urgency dissipated—leaving room for anger.
“What were you thinking?” I growled. “That isn’t something you just toss around as if you’d picked it up at Walmart. And you don’t, by God and all his angels, you don’t ever throw something like that at my mate.”
Behind me Adam laughed. I turned to give him an indignant look to see him drying his hands off with a shop rag. But he was looking at Zee.
“Bran looks like that when she lays into him,” he told Zee. “Affronted, but also sort of incredulous and delighted. When was the last time someone yelled at you for a”—and his voice lost its amusement—“dumb stunt?” He let the words ring a moment and said, “Are you going to tell me what that was?”
“Haunted,” I said.
“An artifact,” Zee answered at the same time.
Zee shrugged. “Haunted might be right. Your mate was in no danger. It takes time to feel its effects, and once it is no longer in skin contact, its magic dissipates.”
“I stand by my objection,” I said. “I don’t care how harmless you think it is. Don’t throw cursed objects at my husband.”
Zee threw up his hands. “Fine. Fine.”
Adam got us back on track. “What would it do if I wore it for longer than five minutes?”
Zee looked at me. “People who wear that ring on a regular basis kill themselves. Eventually.”