Chalice and Blade Read online

  Dee was sitting outside on the ground—likely soaking up energy from the soil. Earth was his element as water was mine. A large tree was behind him but I couldn’t tell what kind in the gloom. A porch light lit the bright red back door of his parents’ house.

  I told him everything from the moment my parents had come banging on my door this morning until now. He was silent through the telling, listening with an intensity so strong I felt it like a comfortable weight in the air around me. When I finished, the silence continued.

  “Diego?” I said.

  “I’m here.”

  The silence returned.

  I reached into his mind for his thoughts. He’d feel the tickle inside his skull and know I was there. I’d told him more times than I could count that if he didn’t want me in his head, he needed to tell me what he was thinking.

  “Damn,” I said. “Really?”

  He shrugged. “Drake was my best friend growing up. We’re still close. He’s a hunter. He’s after the stolen blade.”

  “And you’re going with him,” I said, knowing it for a fact. Not because I read his mind, but because I knew who he was.

  “The envoy asked for both of us,” he said with a shrug. “I couldn’t very well say no when Drake had already said yes.” He paused. “Not a lot different from a Danyon and Peet job, just on another level.

  Funny that he had the same thought I’d had about Danyon and Peet—been there, done that. We were both on hiatus from Danyon and Peet now, since the thing with Gil. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go back, frankly, but that was a decision to make later.

  Dee, like his friend, Drake, was a hunter. It was what he did and who he was by nature. Except that for him it wasn’t about bagging the prize, it was about making the save. Didn’t matter if it was saving a puck from hitting the back of his net in ice hockey or saving humans and fairies from finding themselves in a war. It was all the same to him.

  I supposed I was a hunter, too, now. Though I was more about plain old winning.

  He sighed. “Things are pretty shitty here. I’m glad for an excuse to leave.”

  Dee had been raised in a commune of wizards—five families sharing magic and mates, from what I could tell. He and Gil had the same father but different mothers. After Gil’s death, he’d gone home to the compound to be with his family.

  “What’s going on?” I said.

  Another silence—short, but long enough to register with me.

  “My parents fell out over what happened with Gil. My dad moved into town like a fucking coward, leaving my sisters and me to deal with our mom and with Gil’s mother. I guess death brings people together or pushes them apart. My sisters got fed up and left two days ago. Gil’s mom is devastated, as you’d expect. It’s done something to her magic. Things keep exploding at her house. She’s been lucky neither she or anyone else has been hurt, so far.”

  “Jeeze. I’m sorry,” I said.

  “I’m sure everyone will work it out in time.” He paused and drew in a noisy breath. “This shit can’t go on forever. People are just going to have to move on with their lives. ”

  There was no rancor in his voice, only a deep weariness.

  I let a few moments go by. “So you won’t be coming home soon.”

  “Not until we have the blade and it’s returned to its Keeper.”

  “Do you know where it is?”

  “Not exactly, but we know the general area, at least according to the envoy. Drake is almost as good as I am at getting what he’s after. We’ll find it.”

  I smiled at his bravado. “No doubt.”

  A thought struck me. “Why do you think only humans were asked to find the artifacts? Why ask my mom, grandmother, and me to go into the darkling lands? Why not ask someone from the fairies? If the envoy or guardian know the general locations, why not go themselves?”

  Dee raised his eyebrows. “Good questions. But you and they aren’t only human. You’re all part fae. Drake is descended from some minor Celtic god, so he’s not completely human. Now that I think about it—why me? I’m the only wholly human involved in getting the artifacts back.”

  “Maybe you need to have a chat with your mother and father.”

  He laughed without humor. “My dad’s definitely my dad and my mom my mother. If you saw them together, you’d see I’m very much a mix of the two.”

  “Maybe in their pasts. Look how far back fae blood comes into my family.”

  He shrugged. “Yeah. Maybe. But that doesn’t answer the question of why no fairies were asked. Unless they were, and are also on the hunt without us knowing.”

  I ran my hand through my hair. “So it might be a contest. Or more, a race to see who recovers the artifacts first. Or not.” I thought about it more. “This sounds like a question for Maurice. If there’s a reason only humans and part-faes were asked, Maurice would know.”

  Dee nodded. “The rat does seem to know everything about everything.” He paused. “I wish we were going after the chalice and the blade together. We’re a good team.”

  I wished we were going together too. “We are excellent together. But you aren’t fae—or so you claim.”

  He chuckled low. “Nope, I’m not. And you’re not the woman I met at the rink, what, more than a year ago now? That woman hardly knew what she wanted besides a good hockey game and, after, four walls to hide out behind. You’re growing bold in your old age. I like to think I helped that change along.”

  The joy of FaceTime was he could see my reactions. Even though he was right, I gave him a big slice of side-eye. “You’re pretty much the same as the day we met. Your ego may be slightly smaller than I first thought. Or not.”

  He laughed, and I laughed, and it felt really good. There hadn’t been much laughter for either of us in the last month or so.

  “What about The Gate?” I said after we’d stopped giggling.

  Dee sighed. “I don’t know. I’ll talk to Jack, see if he can talk sense into McGowan.”

  Jack Schneider was a magic policeman and Dee’s friend. He’d been with me when I’d gone to rescue Dee and The Gate from Gil’s murderous intent. I respected him.

  Dee hadn’t said talk sense into The Gate, because that was impossible.

  “Maurice thinks you should come home immediately,” I said, “to help straighten out this mess. And find out who really killed Hugo Bernard.”

  “The Gate is more than capable of taking care of himself. If he’s choosing to sit around in a jail cell, he has his reasons.”

  That was no doubt true. The Gate always seemed to have his own reasons for what he did. Reasons no one but he could fathom.

  “I miss you,” I said, so softly it was nearly a whisper.

  “I miss you, too.” And then, “We’re leaving tomorrow morning. Drake and me.”

  A small hand of worry clutched at my heart. Dee was good at what he did and more than capable, but we’d been together on every job, every hunt since we’d met. Not that he needed my protection, but—

  I don’t know. It was like we got traded to separate teams after having been successful partners. We were each good in our own right, but together we were great.

  “We’ll be here a few days still,” I said. “Mom has to arrange time off from the ordin hospital where she works, and for someone to tend to her magical patients.”

  Dee’s face showed surprise and a little confusion. “The envoy who approached Drake and me insisted we leave immediately.”

  “Modis wanted us to, but when Mom explained she couldn’t up and leave at the drop of a hat, Modis said it was enough that we’d agreed to go, that our word would placate the fairies for a while.”

  There was a small silence as we each thought about why there would be a difference, but how could we know the thinking of Modis or the fairies? We only knew what we’d been told.

  When Dee spoke again, his voice was dark and serious.

  “Look, Oona,” he said, “you be careful.”

  “I’m always careful,”
I said. “You, though. You take chances.” I swallowed down a new lump of worry that suddenly formed in my throat. “So don’t, okay.”

  He got that look—head tilted, eyebrows slightly raised, lips together—that said he knew I was right, but that he was right, too. The truth was, we both took chances.

  “Call me when you get back,” he said, his voice returning to normal. “I’ll call you if I’m done first.”

  After we hung up, I showered and got dressed for bed, but couldn’t settle. I knew sleep wasn’t going to be easily found tonight. It was only a little after ten. I changed back into street clothes and drove up to the Community Center and around to the back, where Maurice lived.

  When I softly called his name, the rat trotted right out of his home in the little patch of greenery near the tennis courts and then peered up at me.

  “Late for you,” he said.

  “I hope I didn’t wake you,” I said.

  Maurice laughed his high-pitched rat laugh. “Rats are nocturnal, Oona. Didn’t you know that?”

  I shrugged. “Well, now that you mention it.”

  Maurice sat on his haunches. “What brings you out this time of night?”

  I reached into my purse and pulled out a brownie I’d picked up at a convenience store on the way over, unwrapped it and set it down for him.

  “Thanks,” he said, and nibbled at a corner. “Your homemade are better, but I’ve told you that before.”

  “Sorry, but this was a spur of the moment visit. I have a question for you.”

  Maurice was a rat of many talents and abilities. He also knew more about arcane lore than anyone I’d ever known or even heard of.

  “I was talking to Diego tonight,” I said, “and the question of why no fairies were recruited to find the chalice or the blade came up. Why only humans, even if most of us seem to have something not human in our blood. Diego is off to hunt for the blade with his friend Drake, who evidently has some minor god in his background.”

  Maurice hissed lightly between his big front teeth. “So he won’t be coming home to help find Hugo’s killer.”

  “Not right away.”

  Maurice nodded, accepting the news. “Why don’t you sit down? The answer to your question is a bit of a long story.”

  The only place to sit was on the asphalt parking lot. I lowered myself down and sat cross-legged, and waited for him to begin. A lot was riding on finding the chalice and the blade. I wanted to know everything I could about the artifacts.

  “Back in the day,” Maurice said, “and by that I mean the dim annals of time after the Romans left England but before England was united under King Edred in 954. Somewhere in that five hundred or so years, the queen of one of the many English kingdoms—no one can remember exactly which one it was—gave birth to a girl child. The red-headed, not-too-bad-looking-himself king took one look at the raven-haired, misshapen, club-footed child, thought of his blonde and beautiful wife, and concluded the child wasn’t his.”

  I nodded and listened. When he’d said it was a long story, I hadn’t quite expected it to begin in the ninth century.

  Maurice scratched one ear with a paw, then continued. “The king called for his queen and the child to be brought before him and all his court in the throne room. In front of everyone who mattered or had any sort of power or prestige in the entire kingdom, he demanded to know with whom she had lain to beget such an ugly beast of a child.

  “The queen, when the baby was shown to her, screamed, fell down before her husband and swore that was not the child she’d given birth to. This was in the days before royalty was expected to give birth publically, probably to prevent exactly these sorts of ‘misunderstandings.”

  “The midwife was also brought before the king,” Maurice said, “and she, too, swore the queen had given birth to a beautiful, fair-haired girl. The king was fond of his queen and didn’t want her thrown down a well for ‘cavorting with ogres and gnomes’ or whatever, so it seemed there was only one explanation—the dark-haired child was a changeling, left by the fairies when they’d stolen the fair-haired princess.”

  “I think I’ve heard this story before,” I said.

  The rat’s eyes narrowed and his voice gained a sharp edge. “Listen up. This isn’t a story; this is history.”

  Maurice huffed out a breath. “The king wasn’t going to stand for this sort of insult. “He ordered the raven-haired child killed. He sent his soldiers and huntsmen into the forest where the fairies were known to live to find and retrieve his child. And, oh by the way, while they were there, they should kill as many fairies as possible, and the man who brought him the head of the fairy queen, who the human king had convinced himself was the true mother of the club-footed child, would receive a title, lands, money, and the hand of his true daughter once she was of age.

  “You can imagine the bloodbath this led to. But the humans underestimated the ferocity of the fairy warriors. The war raged for years. The old king died and was replaced by a new king and then another new king after that—one who realized this war was devastating not only to the fairies but his people and lands as well. He decided to seek a truce.”

  Maurice paused to nibble on the brownie. He coughed.

  “Water,” he said, and coughed again. “Fucking walnuts.”

  I reached into my purse for the small bottle of water I fortunately had, uncapped the bottle, filled the cap with water, and set it down for him. He poked his nose into the cap and drank, then sat up.

  Thanks,” he said, still coughing slightly.

  I recapped the bottle and put it back in my purse.

  “Peace terms were agreed on,” Maurice said, continuing the story. “To seal the deal each side was to make an offering to the other. The humans made the blade and the fairies made the chalice. The fairy king, being who he was, also demanded a blood price. At the signing of the peace treaty, the human king was made to cut his wrist with the blade and drain his blood into the chalice.

  “All of it?” I asked, slightly horrified.

  “Not enough to kill him, but enough to make him weak. Enough for the fairy king to make his point. The fairy king did the same, the mixing of the blood meant to symbolize that now they were one. So long as each side retained their item, there would be peace between them.”

  I tsked my tongue against the back of my teeth. “What about the third item?”

  “Yes, that,” Maurice said, cleaning a bit of brownie off his whiskers with a swipe of a paw. “Neither side truly trusted the other, so a third item was crafted by the finest dwarf craftsman using magic from both sides, to be used to re-establish the peace should it be broken.”

  “Which is why,” I said, thinking it through, “the theft will set off a new war unless the relics are found and returned. Because neither side trusts the other anymore now than they did then. And each side will blame the other.”

  Maurice shrugged one rat shoulder. “It’s also why the items were all in the United States—since neither side trusted the other, the US was deemed a neutral party, both the local humans and the local fae. This was sometime in the early 1800s. The relics have been passed down from Keeper to Keeper ever since.”

  “And why humans with fae or blood of the gods in their veins have been asked to retrieve them, but no fairies. Because, since we are both human and fae, we’re seen as neutral as well?”

  Maurice shrugged. “Most likely.”

  I pressed my lips together, thinking. “But Diego is completely human, so far as he knows.”

  “Maybe he’s a token,” Maurice said. “Or maybe Diego doesn’t know as much about his family as he thinks he does.”

  I almost winced. Why did people ever think it was better to hide the truth than be honest and let those affected make their own decisions about how to deal with it?

  Maybe he caught my almost wince, because Maurice said, “Jesus. You still worrying about having fae blood.”

  “Still considering the ramifications,” I said.

  “You
might as well consider the ramifications of having both a right and a left arm,” he said testily. “It’s who you are. Enjoy it.” He turned, muttering under his breath so that I had to strain to hear, “So damn stupid sometimes.”

  Chapter 4

  As far as spellcraft went, I was nowhere near Diego’s level, but I had talents he didn’t.

  Not that being psychic or empathic would help much in the darkling lands, not if it was the same as here and I couldn’t read non-humans. But I had other abilities. I had the gift of telekinesis.

  I’d discovered this talent when I’d swung the murderer, Petra Folger, through the air and slammed her into an invisible cage she’d built around me. Maurice had been the only witness, unless you count Petra’s creature, the marid, who’d also been there. I’d used it one other time, to send a nest of bullet ants I’d conjured crashing into Gil Adair.

  I didn’t want to spend the day worrying about Diego. My time would be better spent seeing if I could make the telekinesis work when I wasn’t scared for my life or for his.

  So, what things could I safely throw around the room with my mind? Pillows seemed the obvious choice. I got up and closed the curtains on the parlor windows that faced the Strand. No need to have curious passersby looking in and seeing objects moving themselves around the room. Strangers looked into my parlor all the time, a consequence of living on a public-walk street. It was the one thing I didn’t like about where my house was.

  Curtains safely closed, I settled on the sofa and tried to think a pillow into movement by sheer force of will. It lay there, unmoving.

  Okay, so maybe I needed to concentrate more. I fixed my gaze on the pillow and again ordered it to rise.

  Nothing.

  I gave it a third try, and again nothing.

  Well, that sucked.

  I thought back to the times my telekinesis power had worked. I’d been in a highly emotional state both times, terrified and one hundred percent determined. A skill that only worked when I was freaking out wasn’t much good to me.