Cold Iron (26 page)

Beth’s pulse quickened and her mouth became dry. She tried to look away, but the prince was there at her back, grasping her wrists, turning her to face the spectacle. His breath tickled the back of her neck. “Watch them. Observe their faces. They drown in pleasure, Beth. We Fae are masters of such things. We know infinite variations.”

“No thank you,” she said.

“I’ve seen inside your mind, Beth. You are curious. Hungry. Insatiable.”

“I was. Not anymore. I’m satisfied with Conn.” It was true. Before she’d gone to bed with Conn, she’d been so starved for pleasure that she’d laid carnal banquets in her mind. Imagined every sort of coupling in the privacy of her thoughts. The prince had seen them. But now that Conn was her lover, she didn’t hunger anymore.

“At present, perhaps.” The prince released her wrists. “But ask yourself this: Would Conn have turned down the invitation? He is Fae, after all.”

“There will only, ever, be you.”
She had to believe him.

They continued their journey through the house, past rooms heaped with treasure. Art from every century, finery from every corner of the globe. The marble hall bisecting the center of the house, which she’d glimpsed when they’d arrived, before she’d passed out, was even grander than she had imagined. The front doors were closed, but the back pair opened onto a wide terrace overlooking a reflecting pool hundreds of yards long, flanked by English gardens. At the end, glittering in the sun, was a landscaped artificial hillock: the mound.

Bigger than Newgrange. Bigger than Clonmel. Bigger than anything she had seen in Britain, Ireland, or on the Continent. The top was covered with lush green grass, the sides faced with glittering white quartz, the whole structure ringed with deeply carved slabs of stone. The entrance was crowned by a light box, a square opening carved straight through the rock, and with the sun low in the sky, Beth could see deep into the central shaft.

“How is it that I’ve never seen or heard of this place before?” she asked.

“We are on private property,” he explained. “It is mine.”

It took a moment for her to grasp his meaning. “This was where the Druids kept you.”

“Until the Romans came,” he agreed. “They tried to break the queen’s enchantment, to mark me, over and over again. First with ink, then with iron, then with acid, and finally with fire.”

“The enchantment,” she said, hoping against hope, “did it protect you from the pain?”

“Oh no. Not at all.”

They had been as bad as the Fae, her Druid ancestors. There was no denying it. And there was no excuse for it. “I’m sorry,” she said. She must not become as they had been.

“Save your sympathy, little Druid. I’ve had my revenge many times over. Now we must strike our bargain.”

She had thought it all through a thousand times. This was the only way. “Promise that no harm will come to Conn, that there will be no reprisals against him for conspiring with the Druids. That I can be with him.” She swallowed hard. “And I will reunite you with the Court.”

“Conn is one Fae,” he chided. “A champion, to be sure, but not of royal blood. When you see the splendor of the Court, you will regret you did not consider your reward more carefully.”

“No, I won’t.”

“As you wish, then.” He gestured for her to precede him. The gravel crunched beneath her feet. Blood-red anemones bloomed along the path. Close up, the quartz walls were blinding.

They stopped outside the entrance. She surveyed the carvings around the door, took note of the angle of the sun entering the light box, illuminating the shaft several feet inside. Yes, she knew how to do this. In theory.

“I’m too weak to open the gate. I need to draw from you.”

“I give you my permission.” The Prince Consort rolled back the pearl-encrusted sleeve of his coat and held out his hand. She took it. “Within reason.”

His hand felt smooth and warm, his grip light but firm. There was a startling intimacy in the connection. She’d never drawn intentionally, with forethought, from a Fae like this. With Conn it had been instinctive. With Miach desperation and pain had guided her.

She opened herself, pulled. The prince’s power was different from Conn’s and Miach’s, more alien, more difficult to channel and make her own. Especially since she had to keep her guard up against him, her thoughts hidden, and because it was all too tempting to enjoy it. The power buzzed over her fingers like an electrical charge and burned through her like Miach’s whiskey, smooth and intoxicating.

His grip tightened. She was hurting him. He was a creature of careless appetite and cruel perversities and she should not care, but for all the Druidic learning she now had, she was still a woman. Inflicting pain on another being did not come naturally to her. She wasn’t certain she had drawn enough power for what she intended to do, but there was no way she could go on siphoning magic out of him. She could see how the pleasure of it had corrupted her ancestors, how it could corrupt her. She released him.

The prince shivered and shook himself. No. He hadn’t enjoyed that at all. But the eager gleam hadn’t left his eyes either. “Do it,” he said.

She nodded and turned to the mound.

She’d seen the calculations when the Druidic knowledge had flooded her mind. The exiled Fae weren’t prisoners beneath the earth. That was simply a way to describe what had been done. The Fae were . . . elsewhere. The Otherworld. On earth, but removed. Out of step with the human world. To reach them, she must tilt this world until it met the next. Until the shaft in the mound led from this world into the other.

She pushed
 
. . . on the world
. It was like standing on a teeter-totter. She was the lever and the fulcrum at the same time. Imperceptible to anyone but a Druid or a Fae sorcerer, the world shifted. The shaft of light passing through the box over the door lengthened until it hit the back wall of the tomb, and
passed
through the stone.

The gate to the Otherworld was open.

T
he iron chains were gone
from Miach’s study. Conn prowled restlessly as the sorcerer made phone call after phone call, directed Liam, still obstinately going about with his bruised and broken nose, and Nial, and the rest of his prodigious family as they aided in the search.

And discreetly dispatched a car to fetch Helene Whitney home.

Miach’s human kin treated him with respect, but not awe. Amidst the comings and goings, the square-jawed girl with the toddler reappeared and brought Miach his tea at his desk. She blithely disregarded his request for an extra lump of sugar and removed his empty cup as if from long habit. It was torture to take in the thousand little details of domestic life, this happiness that Conn had once had, and lost, and now might never know again. Not without Beth.

He had nursed his grievances, remained out of the world, too long. He’d known it the second he’d seen Beth across that crowded gallery. Now he understood how much he had missed.

“Two of the Fianna also went to the prince’s house with Brian,” Liam was saying.

Miach considered, then said, “Have Angus and Kermit fetch them here.”

Liam hesitated. “It may cause trouble with Finn.”

“Nevertheless,” Miach said.

An hour later Angus and Kermit, who must, Conn decided from their vividly Fae looks, be closer in blood to Miach, perhaps only great-grand or grandsons, escorted two of the Fianna in. Conn recognized Finn’s get from the island. Boys. Thin blood. Generations removed from their Fae ancestors, trying hard to conceal their terror at being “invited” by strong-bloods like Angus and Kermit to attend Miach MacCecht.

The Fianna boys confirmed Brian’s description and fell over one another, swearing that neither of them had touched Beth or Helene. Conn thought he saw Angus and Kermit exchange amused smiles as the “guests” stammered their apologies.

Miach dismissed the Fianna, then ordered Angus and Kermit to deal with Frank Carter. “Meet the police at the hospital,” he said. “I’ve already arranged for the detectives to be among our friends on the force. Conn can tell you what this man’s crimes are. Frank Carter is to confess in writing.”

Conn gave the half-breeds their instructions. When they had gone, he took Miach aside. “The young Fianna were terrified to be brought here. What is it they fear?”

“One of Finn’s get forgot his manners with our Margaret. They know the penalty for abusing a woman under the protection of Miach MacCecht,” was all Miach would say.

After that, information began to pour in. There were five great houses in Ireland that might answer to Brian’s jumbled description. These had names, addresses, publicly available information. Tax records and land surveys. Miach’s vast network—familial and financial—and the tenuous contacts he kept up with the Fae abroad supplied a steady stream of data.

And something more.

Miach’s Fae associates abroad knew of three great estates in Ireland without names or addresses, thought to belong to the
Aes Sídhe.
Masked, like Miach’s island in the harbor. No maps, no tax assessments, no human records of their existence. If a Fae of the prince’s power bothered to conceal his demesne, Brian’s “palace” could be any of these with none the wiser.

That made eight possibilities. “We cannot search them all in time,” Conn said. That queer empty feeling he’d experienced when he’d found Christie Kelley’s body was back again.

“Have faith in Beth,” Miach counseled. “She will not agree to free the Court for him.”

“No,” Conn agreed. “She won’t. She’ll die fighting him. And he’ll kill her by degrees if he can’t get his way.” He had not done so yet. Conn would know if he had. Beth was alive. For now.

“We have done all we can to narrow the field to these eight possibilities. It is time to begin searching. We can split up. Elada and I will take the first half of the list, and you can take the rest.”

“No.” The prince was no matinee villain. He had waited two thousand years for the return of the Court. He would not delay now that he had Beth. He would attempt to bend her to his will, and when she refused him, he would begin hurting her. “Brian said there was a mound near the house. Beth once showed me aerial photos of Clonmel. The barrows are sometimes visible from above.”

It took an hour to find aerial views of all the five unmasked properties. Conn didn’t possess Beth’s gift for feeling Fae sites; he could only search for the telltale circular impressions in the topography that might indicate a mound, or turn out to be an ordinary hill or an icehouse. Liam and Nial pulled up satellite photos of all the properties, and Conn examined them all in minute detail, looking for a great house near the remains of a barrow.

He found one. And
passed.

O
pening the gate drank every
ounce of strength Beth had taken from the prince and left her drained and swaying on the gravel, but he didn’t spare a glance for her. His eyes were fixed on the shaft, on the light at the end. He took an expectant step forward and held up a hand in elegant greeting. The wind lifted his hair, and it whipped and floated like a black pennant.

Toward the door.

A torrent of dry leaves, red and gold, swirled past Beth and into the mouth of the tomb. Gravel skittered over the beds, then disappeared down the shaft. A high-pitched keening sound rose up from the mound, and Beth knew she was finally hearing the
bean sídhe,
foretelling death and destruction.

The wind grew in force. Now it caught the prince’s gray velvet coat, whipped its skirts, and tore the pearls free. Beth watched them shoot through the door into the mound.

The prince whirled to face Beth. He fought against the gale to take a step toward her and away from the open gate, but the wind dragged him back. “What have you done?”

“Opened the gate. At least, in one direction.”

“We had a bargain,” he shouted over the gathering storm.

“A Fae bargain,” Beth said, her voice ten thousand Druids strong. “I promised to reunite you with the Court. And I will. In exile. On the
other
side.”

The pull of the gate dragged him back. His heels dug furrows in the ground. His beautiful mouth curled into a wide smile and he laughed. “You
have
become wholly Druid, little Beth. Unfortunately for you, I remain wholly Fae.” He lunged like a striking cobra, grasped her arm and dragged her with him toward the door.

Chapter 13

C
onn
passed,
and found himself standing before a great Georgian palace. Elada and Miach followed moments later, but he was already running up the stairs to the pillared entrance. He burst through the double doors. Servants—ornamental and effete—shrieked and ran. One of the prince’s circle, a true courtier, naked, his hair sweeping the floor, glittering and useless, emerged from one of the long corridors and drew a rapier.

Conn unsheathed the Summoner.

The Fae ran.

A set of glass doors opened onto a wide terrace. Stairs curved up to a balcony. Corridors stretched left and right. Curtains billowed. Frightened, pretty faces peeked around doors. Which way to go?

“I will take the left and Elada the right.” Miach lifted both hands toward the ceiling, and every door on the ground floor opened wide. The sorcerer and his right arm set off in opposite directions.

Conn started for the curving stairs, then stopped. There was something about the quality of light coming through the terrace doors, something about the swirling leaves and whistling wind outside that wasn’t right.

He opened the doors and heard it. A strange keening sound. He crossed the polished terrace and looked out. The ground fell away sharply here. Marble stairs descended to a sunken garden. A reflecting pool stretched hundreds of feet through manicured English gardens.

At the end of the prospect was a mound. Not as Druid structures stood today, gentled by the Irish landscape, but as it had for millennia, stark and glittering with quartz walls, roofed by lush grass, frozen in time.

Within the ring of stones that guarded the barrow stood a woman in a white gown, chestnut hair streaming down her back. Beth. Before the entrance stood the prince. And visible even at this distance, was the shaft of light issuing from the mound.

She had opened a gate.

The wind picked up, the keening grew louder, and the prince shouted, his words lost on the gathering storm. Conn saw him try to take a step forward, only to be caught in the grip of the maelstrom.

Clever Beth. She had opened a gate. To the Otherworld
. Inward.
That was his girl.

Then the prince lunged and grasped her arm, and dragged her toward her doom.

S
he dug her toes into
the gravel, felt the sharp stones through her thin slippers. If the prince pulled her through, if he took her with him to the Fae Court, she would die in torment. A storm of images, a Druid catalog of Fae depravity passed before her eyes and choked her with terror. It would not be a quick death—and the Druid longevity and vitality Conn had promised would prove a ghastly curse.

The prince’s long fingers bit into the soft flesh of her arm and squeezed until she thought the bones would break. He was halfway through the gate, and in a moment she would join him.

“Beth!”

She looked over her shoulder. Conn. He was there. Running down the path, so fast he became a blur. Then he was standing over her, with the Summoner raised above his head. A yard of silvered death. It fell in a shimmering arc.

The prince’s grip slackened, then released her. She watched in amazement as he was sucked into the shaft, even as the light at the end faded and went dark.

He was gone.

There was a weight resting on her feet, dragging at the hem of her dress. For a moment she didn’t understand what it could be. Then she understood all too well.

It was the prince’s arm. She tried to back away from it, but it was pinning her hem to the ground. “You cut off his arm.”

And there was something wrong with it. There ought to be blood and mangled flesh, but there was only silver, beautifully articulated. Perfect in every detail, from the rolled sleeve of his coat to the jewels crusting the hem, like some medieval relic.

“One of the queen’s enchantments,” Conn said, picking the thing up and hurling it away with distaste. “And no doubt something Miach should take charge of.”

“
What
is something I should take charge of?” The sorcerer was coming down the path, the taller Elada treading faithfully behind him.

Conn indicated the silver arm lying on the grass.

“That,” Miach said, looking down at the severed arm, “will prove troublesome. It means the prince has a foot in both worlds.”

“Arm, really,” said Elada.

“Or
hand
,” Beth said. “To preserve the analogy.”

Miach ignored the commentary and looked straight at Beth. “You sent the prince, or most of him, to join the Court-in-exile. How? A Druid trick?”

“No.” Beth met his gaze without fear or apology. “A Fae bargain.”

Miach inclined his head. “Well done.” He picked up the arm and wrapped it in his jacket. “Elada and I will attempt to free the prince’s servants. Most are long glamoured and deeply damaged. No doubt you two have matters to discuss.”

Miach and his champion started up the gravel path, then stopped. “You will be happy to know that your friend Helene was returned safely to her home in the Back Bay.”

She
was
happy to know it. She regretted dragging Helene into her troubles. “Thank you,” she said.

“I didn’t do it for you, Beth. I still want her, and I still mean to have her. Do you plan to interfere?”

She could. She had that power now. But not the right. Helene had to choose for herself. “Not so long as you don’t compel her, or distress her, no. I won’t interfere. That means no more stalking, no more coercive gifts, no more unwanted home repairs, and no more threatening her other beaux.”

Miach nodded. “Then I suppose I have my work cut out for me.”

She watched as he and Elada strode away, up the gravel path toward the house, leaving Beth and Conn alone.

“Miach is right,” he said, surveying the entrance to the mound, now nothing more than an opening in the earth. “You did well, Beth. The prince is the tricksiest of Fae, and you outwitted him.”

“And I would be with him in the Otherworld now if you hadn’t come. Thank you.”

“Did you doubt I would come for you, my cow-eyed beauty?”

Had she doubted him? “The prince thought that once you had the sword, you would abandon me. You could have.”

“No, I couldn’t have. The Summoner was my obligation. My
geis
. You are what makes such burdens bearable.”

“The prince said you wouldn’t want me now that I have my power, now that I can command you.” She reached up to touch the marks on his chest through the fine cotton of his shirt.

“There are certain circumstances under which I might enjoy being commanded,” he said, placing a hand on her hip and drawing her close.

She forced herself to step back. “And there are others in which you wouldn’t.”

“Yes. But I trust you not to abuse your power. Neither your Druidic voice of command, nor the power you hold over me because I love you. I’m not trusting blindly, Beth. I know you, your strength of character. Frank Carter abused your love. You would never inflict that kind of misery on anyone else.”

She’d forgotten about Frank, broken and bawling in the library at the clinic. Not wanting but somehow needing to know, she asked, “What happened to him?”

“Carter? He will no longer be an impediment to your career. By now he is in a prison hospital in Boston. He has made a written admission of his crimes, and sent his university, your museum, and the relevant journals an apology for misrepresenting your work as his.”

It was everything she had ever wished for. And it was wrong. “You used your glamour to make him do it,” she said.

“I did not. But two of Miach’s strong-blooded sons were happy to oblige. Let us be blunt—Frank Carter’s honesty was compelled, but his crimes were real.”

“Thank you. Now don’t ever do it again. I want to earn my position in the academic world. You can’t make a gift of it to me.”

“I gave you back only a little part of what Frank Carter stole. The rest you must reclaim for yourself. With my mundane help, if you’ll have it. I can do for you what you did for Frank Carter. Travel with you, share my knowledge with you. Discuss your findings. Even annotate and edit your work.”

It was everything she had ever dreamed of. “What kind of life is that for Conn of the Hundred Battles?”

“A privileged one, if you’ll have me. And there’s no one worth fighting anymore, in any case.”

M
iach and Elada
passed
home
that afternoon. The sorcerer used his wealth and connections to make travel arrangements for Beth and Conn.

“You can
pass
home with them. I don’t mind flying by myself,” she told him.

“I’d rather not be parted from you now that I have you safe. You get into trouble, my cow-eyed beauty, anytime I let you out of my sight.”

Before he left, Miach took Beth aside and said, “When you return home, you will consent to be trained?”

“Are you sure you want that?” she asked. “A fully trained Druid on your doorstep?”

He answered her question with a question. “Do you really believe this is the first attempt in two thousand years to open that gate?”

She hadn’t thought about it, but of course it wasn’t. “No.”

“But it
was
the first to succeed. And this, from an untrained Druid only freshly come into her power. What does that tell you?”

Wards fade. Spells dissipate. Bonds can be broken.
“The borders between this world and the other are weakening,” she said.

“The time will come, Beth Carter, when I can no longer stand alone against those who would free the Court.” And with the Druids gone, Conn would be the focus of Fae vengeance. “Will you consent to be trained?”

“Yes.”

The prince’s estate turned out to be quite near Clonmel. Their flight wasn’t until morning, so they borrowed one of the prince’s cars—Conn selected a gray Jaguar—and drove to the inn where they had first met.

Mrs. McClaren was at the front desk, and Mr. O’Donovan was filling his pipe when Conn and Beth walked in.

“A room, please,” Conn said.

“And we’ll pay for it,” Beth added.

“With what?” he laughed, indicating her filmy gown and kidskin slippers.

“Good point.”

Mrs. McClaren shot Beth a panicked look. “You’ll want two rooms then, yes? I can give you the one with the nice iron bed. That’s empty. Or the one with the iron lock on the door. We can turn Mr. Keneally out in a trice.”

“No iron,” Conn intoned.

“It’s all right, Mrs. McClaren. He’s bound to behave himself.” Conn shot her a speaking glance. “Or at least to obey me,” she added.

Mrs. McClaren looked entirely amazed, yet strangely hopeful. “Has he married you, then?”

“Yes,” Conn said, putting an end to the conversation.

The room they were given had no iron in it, but the low sloping ceiling under the eaves forced Conn to crawl into the bed. He pushed up the hem on Beth’s gown as he went, then stopped and said, “Now, Beth Carter, I am yours to command.”