Ironside mtof-3 Read online

  Without meaning to, Corny leaned into the touch. Desire flared in him, so sharp it was almost pain. But as his eyes drifted closed, he saw his sister's face disappearing under briny water, saw her screaming great gulps of sea as a beautiful kelpie-turned-boy dragged her down. He saw himself crawling through the dirt to bring a pulpy fruit to drop at a laughing faerie knight's feet.

  His eyes snapped open. He was so furious his hands shook. "Don't flirt," Corny said. He wasn't going to be weak again. He could do this.

  The faery watched him with arched eyebrows and a smile filled with mockery.

  "I'll bet you want Kaye," Corny said. "I can get her for you.”

  The faery frowned. "And you would betray another of your kind so easily?”

  "You know she's not my kind." Corny took him by the elbow. "Come on. She might see us. We can talk in the bathroom.”

  "I beg your pardon.”

  "Keep begging," Corny said, grabbing the faery's arm and leading him through the crowd. A glance back told him that Kaye was preoccupied with the performance onstage. Adrenaline flooded him, narrowing his focus, making rage and desire seem suddenly indistinguishable. He swept into the bathroom. The single stall and two urinals were empty. On a dark purple wall, beside a hand-lettered sign promising decapitation to employees failing to wash their hands, hung a shelf piled with toilet paper and cleaning supplies.

  An utterly unpleasant idea occurred to Corny. He had to fight not to smile.

  "The thing is," he said, "that's not how human guys dress at all. It's not sloppy enough. Roiben always makes the same mistake.”

  The fey man's lip curled slightly, and Corny tried to keep his face blank, as though he had missed that rather interesting tell.

  "Look at yourself. Fix your glamour so that you look more like you're wearing what I'm wearing, okay?”

  The faery looked Corny over. "Repugnant," he said, but unshouldered his messenger bag, leaning it against the wall.

  Corny grabbed the can of Raid off the shelf. If Kaye couldn't even have a cigarette anymore, the effects of a concentrated insect poison should be impressive. He didn't need to speculate long. As the faery turned, Corny sprayed him full in the face.

  The blond choked and fell immediately to his knees, glamour dropping from him, revealing dreadful, inhuman beauty. Corny reveled for a moment in the look of him convulsing on the filthy floor, then he pulled the lace out of his sneaker and used it to tie the creature's hands behind its back.

  The faery squirmed as the knots went tight, trying to twist away as he coughed. Corny scrambled for the can and hit the faery with it as hard as he could.

  "I swear to fucking God, I will spray you again,” Corny said. "Enough of this shit will kill you.”

  The faery went still. Corny stood up, straddling the faery's body, fingering the nozzle on the Raid can. He caught his own gaze in the mirror, saw his short dyed dark hair and his borrowed clothes, how pathetic they were. They didn't make his skin any less spotty or his nose smaller or him any less ugly.

  Thin, strong fingers wound around Corny's calves, but Corny pressed the sole of his sneaker against the faery's neck and squatted down over him. "Now you're going to tell me a whole bunch of things I've always wanted to know.”

  The creature swallowed.

  "Your name," Corny said.

  The blue eyes flashed. "Never.”

  Corny shrugged and slid his foot off of the faery, suddenly uncomfortable. "Fine. Something I can call you, then. And not some stupid 'me myself’ bullshit. I read.”

  "Adair.”

  Corny paused, thinking of the paper in the drawer. "Are you the Fixer? Did you slip Kaye a note?”

  The man looked puzzled, then shook his head. "He's a human, like you.”

  "Okay. Adair, if you're not the Fixer, what do you want with Kaye?”

  The faery was silent for a long moment. Corny slammed the can into the side of the creature's head.

  "Who told you to come here?”

  Adair shrugged and Corny hit him again. Blood stained his mouth.

  "Silarial," he gasped.

  Corny nodded with satisfaction. He was breathing hard, but each breath came out like a laugh. "Why?”

  "The pixie. I'm to take her to the Seelie Court. Many of my Lady's subjects are seeking her out.”

  Corny sat down on Adair's stomach and fisted his hand in the golden hair. "Why?”

  "Queen wants to talk. Just talk.”

  A man with a fauxhawk opened the door, blanched, and then shut it with a slam. The faery twisted himself around, pushing upright.

  "Tell me something else," Corny said. His clenched fingers shook. "Tell me how to protect—”

  At that moment the bathroom door swung open again. This time it was Kaye. "Corny, they're—," she said, then seemed to focus on the scene in front of her. She blinked her eyes rapidly and coughed. “This is so not what I expected to see when I walked in here.”

  "Silarial sent him," Corny said. "For you.”

  "The bartender's calling the cops. We have to get out of here.”

  "We can't let him go," Corny said.

  "Corny, he's bleeding." Kaye coughed again. "What did you do? I feel like my lungs are on fire.”

  Corny started to stand, to explain.

  "I curse you." The faery rolled onto his side and spat a reddish gob of spittle onto Corny's cheek. It ran like a tear. "Let everything that your fingers touch wither.”

  Corny staggered back, and as he did so, his hand brushed the wall. The paint under his fingers buckled and flaked. Stopping, he looked at his palm, the familiar lines and grooves and calluses seemed, suddenly, to form a new and horrible landscape.

  "Come on!" Kaye grabbed him by the sleeve, steering him toward the door.

  The metal of the knob tarnished at the stroke of his skin.

  Chapter 5

  Hell is oneself,

  Hell is alone.

  —T. S. Eliot

  A faun with bloodstained claws sank into a low bow before Roiben's throne. They had come, each of his vassals, to boast of their usefulness, to tell him of their service to the crown, to win his favor and the promise of better tasks. Roiben looked out at the sea of them and had to fight down panic. He gripped the arms of his throne hard enough that the braided wood groaned.

  "In your name," said the creature, "I have killed seven of my brethren and kept their hooves." He emptied out a sack with a clatter.

  "Why?" Roiben asked before he thought better of it, his eye drawn to the jagged chopped bone of the ankles, the way the gore had dried black. The mortar that grooved the floor of the audience chamber was already discolored, but this gift freshened the ruddy stains.

  The faun shrugged. Brambles snarled the fur of his legs. "It was a token that often pleased Lady Nicnevin. I sought only to ingratiate myself with you.”

  Roiben closed his eyes tightly for a moment, then opened them again and took a deep breath, schooling himself to indifference. "Right. Excellent." He turned to the next creature.

  A delicate fey boy with tar-black wings curtsied. "I am pleased to report," he said in a soft, shivery voice, "I have led nearly a dozen mortal children off of rooftops or to their deaths in marshes.”

  "I see," Roiben said with exaggerated reasonableness. For a moment, he was afraid what he might do. He thought of Kaye and what she would think of this; he thought of her standing on her own roof in the T-shirt and underwear she wore to bed, swaying forward drowsily. "In my name? I think you amuse only yourself. Perhaps you could find something more vicious than children to torment now that the war has begun.”

  "As my Lord commands," said the winged faery, scowling at his feet.

  A small hunched hob came forward. With gnarled hands, he unrolled a hideous cloth and spread it over the floor.

  "I have killed a thousand mice, keeping only their tails and weaving those together into a rug. I present it now as a tribute to your magnificence.”

  For the first time he could recall, Roiben
had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. "Mice?" He looked at his chamberlain. Ruddles raised a single brow.

  "Mice," said the hob, puffing out his chest.

  "This is quite an effort," said Roiben. His servants rolled up the rug as the hob walked away, looking pleased with himself.

  A silky made a bobbing bow, her tiny body clothed only in her pale yellow-green hair. "I have caused fields of grapes to wither on the vine, becoming black and heavy with poison. The wine from their juice will harden the hearts of men.”

  "Yes, because the hearts of men aren't nearly hardened enough." Roiben frowned. His diction sounded human. He didn't have to guess where he had picked up those phrases.

  The silky did not appear to notice the sarcasm. She smiled as though he were offering her great praise.

  And so they came, a parade of deeds and gifts, each more grisly than the last, all of them done in the name of Roiben, Lord of the Unseelie Court. Each hideous feat laid before him as a cat drops the bird it has finally killed, once all possible amusement has been wrung from toying with it.

  "In your name," each one said.

  In his name. The name that no one living knew in full, save for Kaye. His name. Now that it belonged to all these others to conjure and to curse by, he wondered who had the greater claim to it.

  Roiben gritted his teeth and nodded and smiled. Only later, in his chambers, sitting on a stool in front of his mouse-tail rug, did he allow himself to be filled with loathing. For all those of the Unseelie Court, who cut and slit and gutted everything they touched. For himself, sitting on a throne in a court of monsters.

  He was still staring at the gifts when a terrible, thunderous crash made the walls shake. Dirt rained down on him, stinging his eyes. A second shock reverberated through the hill. He raced out of the room, toward the noise, and passed Bluet in the hallway. Dust covered her, and the long twisted spikes of her hair nearly obscured a fresh cut on her shoulder. Her lips were the color of a bruise.

  "My Lord!" she said. "There has been an attack!”

  For a moment, he just stared at her, feeling foolish, not quite able to understand. For all his hatred of Silarial, he couldn't quite accept that he was at war with those he had loved, those whom he still considered his people. He couldn't accept that they'd struck first.

  "Attend to yourself," he told her dazedly, moving on toward the sound of screams. A handful of faeries darted past him, silent and covered in dirt. One, a goblin, stared at him with wet eyes before rushing on.

  The great hall was on fire. The top was cracked open like an egg, and a portion of one side was missing. Gusts of greasy black smoke rose up to the starry sky, devouring the falling snow. At the center of the brugh was a truck—a semi—its iron body burning. The chassis was twisted, the cab crushed under heaps of dirt and rock, as red and gold flames licked upward. A sea of burning oil and diesel fuel spread to scorch everything it touched.

  He stared, stunned. There, under the debris, were dozens upon dozens of bodies: his herald, Thistledown; Widdersap, who had once whistled through a blade of grass to make a serving girl dance; Snagill, who'd carefully limned the ceiling of the feasting room in silver. The hob who'd woven the mouse-tail rug screamed, rolling around in fire.

  Ellebere pushed Roiben to the side, just as a granite tombstone fell from above, cracking on the floor of the hall. "You must leave, my Lord," he shouted.

  "Where is Ruddles?" Roiben demanded. "Dulcamara?”

  "They don't matter." Ellebere's grip on Roiben tightened. "You are our King.”

  Through the smoke, figures appeared, chopping at the fallen and the injured.

  "Get the fey in the hallways to safety." Roiben wrenched his arm free. "Take them to the Kinnelon ruins.”

  Ellebere hesitated.

  Two bolts flew through the rancid smoke to embed themselves in what remained of the earthen wall. Thin shafts of glass that Seelie knights used for arrows—so fine that you could barely feel them as they pierced your heart.

  "As you said, I am your King. Do it now!" Roiben pushed his way through the choking brume, leaving Ellebere behind.

  The same faun who had brought Roiben the hooves of his fellows was trying to dig another faery out from beneath a mound of earth. And nearby lay Cirillan, who loved tears so much that he saved them in tiny vials that cluttered up his room. His aqua skin was smeared with dusty blood and silver burrs that had been shot from Bright Court slings.

  As Roiben watched, the faun gasped, his body arched, and he fell.

  Roiben drew his curved sword. All his life he had been in service to battle, but he had never seen the like of what was happening all around him. The Bright Court had never fought so inelegantly.

  He dodged just before the tines of a golden trident caught him in the chest. The Seelie knight swung again, her teeth bared.

  He slammed his sword into her thigh and she faltered. Grabbing her trident at the base, he sliced her throat, quick and clean. Blood sprayed his face as she fell to her knees, reaching for her own neck in surprise.

  He didn't know her.

  Two humans rushed at him from either side. One held up a gun, but he cut off the hand that held it before the mortal had a hope of firing. He stabbed the other through the chest. A human boy—perhaps twenty, with a Brookdale College T-shirt and rumpled hair—slumped over Roiben's hooked sword.

  For a moment, the boy reminded him of Kaye.

  Kaye. Dead.

  There was a shout and Roiben turned to see a shower of silver pinecones burst just short of where he stood. Through the smoke he saw Ruddles, taking a bite out of the side of a Seelie fey's face, Dulcamara dispatching two others with knives. One of Roiben's pages, Clotburr, slammed a burning harp into another faery.

  Here, in his once majestic hill, human corpses still held their iron weapons in stiffening hands as they slumped beside more than a dozen unmoving Unseelie troops in shining armor. The fire lit the bodies, one by one.

  "Quickly," Dulcamara said. Choking black smoke was everywhere. Somewhere in the distance, Roiben could hear sirens wailing. Above them, the mortals came to pour water on the burning hill.

  Clotburr coughed, slowing, and Roiben lifted him up, settling the boy against his shoulder.

  "How did she do this?" asked Dulcamara, her fingers clenched white-knuckled around the hilt of her blade.

  Roiben shook his head. There were protocols to faerie battles. He could not imagine Silarial putting decorum aside, especially when every advantage was hers. But too, who of her people would know what she had done this day? Only those few she had sent to command the mortals. Most were dead. One cannot dishonor oneself before the dead. It occurred to him then that he'd misunderstood Dulcamara's question. She didn't want to know how Silarial could be so hideously inventive; she was puzzling out how it had been accomplished.

  "Mortals," Roiben said, and now that he considered it, he had to admit a grudging awe for so radical and terrible a stratagem. "Silarial's folk are charming humans instead of leading them off roofs. She's making troops of them. Now we are more than overmatched. We are lost.”

  The weight of the soot-smeared faery in his arms made him think of all of the folk of the Night Court, all those he had sworn to be sovereign over. All those lives he'd been willing to accept in trade for Silarial's death. And he wondered in that moment what he might have accomplished if he'd done more than just endure. Whom he might have saved.

  As though catching his thoughts, Ruddles turned toward him with a frown. "What now, my King?”

  Roiben found himself wanting to win the unwinnable war.

  He had known only two rulers, both great and neither good. He did not know how to be any kind of King nor how to win, other than to be even more ruthless than they.

  Kaye pushed Corny ahead of her, through the crowd near the door of the club, out past the ID-check woman, who still looked giddy with enchantment. He held his hands above his head, as in surrender, and when people came close, he flinched. They wal
ked like that for several blocks, past people in their heavy coats shuffling through the slush. Kaye watched the heels of a woman's ostrich-leather boots stab through an icy mound of snow. The woman stumbled.

  Corny turned toward her, dropping his hands so that they now hung in front of him. He looked like a zombie lurching toward its next victim.

  "I know where," Kaye said, taking deep breaths of the acrid iron air.

  She crossed several blocks, Corny behind her. The streets were a maze of names and bodegas, similar enough for her to get easily turned around. She found her way back to Café des Artistes, though, and from there to the fetish shop.

  Corny looked at her in confusion.

  "Gloves," she told him firmly as she steered him inside.

  The scent of burning patchouli thickened the air in the Irascible Peacock. Leather corsets and thongs hung from the walls, their metal buckles and zippers gleaming. Behind the desk a bored-looking older man read the paper, not even glancing up at them.

  In the back of the store, Kaye could see the restraints, floggers, and whips. The hollow eyes of masks watched her as she threaded her way toward a pair of elbow-length rubber gloves.

  She grabbed them, paid the bored clerk with five glamoured leaves, and bit off the plastic tag with her teeth.

  Corny stood next to a marble table, fingers pressed to a stack of flyers advertising a fetish ball. The paper yellowed in widening circles, aging beneath his hands. Withering. A slow smile curved on his mouth, as though watching it gave him pleasure.

  "Stop that," Kaye said, holding out the gloves.

  Corny started, looking at her as though he didn't know her. Even as he slid on the gloves, he did so numbly, and then stared at his rubber-encased arms in puzzlement.

  Walking out, the shine of a pair of chromed handcuffs lined in mink caught Kaye's eye and she picked them up, running her thumb over the soft pelt. Years of shoplifting instincts made her slip them into her pocket before she hit the door.

  "I can't believe you jumped some guy in a bathroom," Kaye said as soon as they'd crossed the street.