Dame of Owls (2 page)

             
Sid cringed. “Sorry, no. I was trying to get you isolated.”

             
“Wow,” he said. “Wow, that’s creepy. Congratulations. But, you know, I was really up for that sexy drink.”

             
She could feel a flush creeping up the back of her neck. “Please never say the word sexy again.”

             
“You started it.”

             
A heavy silence settled over the car, broken only by the sound of Sid shifting gears and traffic passing them by. Chris frowned, but it didn’t seem to be directed at her. Maybe he was just thinking. Maybe he was processing his experiences. Maybe he was calculating how long before she’d need to stop for gas, when he could finally make his escape.

             
This was why Sid preferred mortals unconscious. You never had to second-guess their motives when they were out and drooling.

             
“My name is Sid,” she blurted out, when she couldn’t take him looking shocked and morose anymore.

             
“And what was that guy’s name?”

             
“No idea.”

             
“But you shot him.”

             
“He had it coming.”

             
“Okay.” Chris scrubbed his hand back through his hair. “What the fuck is a fae of the summer blah-blah and why isn’t he dead?”

             
“Do you believe in fairies?”

             
“No.”

             
“Time to start.”

---

              He didn’t run at the first gas station. He didn’t run when she remembered she should feed him and stopped at a seedy diner for sandwiches and weak lemonade. He almost ran, ready to bolt out of a moving vehicle, tuck and roll, the first time they heard sirens on the highway. Luckily, Sid was paying strict respects to the speed limit and the police car blew right past them.

             
“You seem tense,” she said.

             
He glared at her, which she probably deserved.

             
“If you have to know, I just got out of six months at state.”

             
“College?”

             
“Jail.”
              Well then. “What for?”

             
“Aren’t I supposed to be the one asking invasive questions?”

             
“What for?”

             
“One of my roommates decided it would be hilarious to start growing weed in the basement, and I didn’t rat him out because he had child support payments to make. At least, that’s what he told me. Still not entirely sure he had kids. I’m a sucker.” He spread his hands. “Which is probably why I'm in a car, with you, without having locked up the shop, going god knows where. Because I’m a sucker.”

             
He didn’t want to admit he was scared of getting shot. She’d give him that much dignity, at least.

             
“There’s a prepaid cellphone in the glove compartment. It should have some minutes left on it. Text your boss, don’t call.”

             
Whatever he said, by the time his boss got the text and got the police to care about searching for a grown man with a criminal record, Sid and Chris would be long gone. Might as well make sure the bookstore didn’t get robbed.

             
“You’re a fairy too, then?” Chris asked without looking up from the phone. “Like the alarmingly not dead guy?”

             
“Very superficially like him. I am from the Winter Court.”

             
“The difference being?”

             
“In our magic, and in our ways.” Sid shrugged. She wasn’t one for philosophy. “We are opposed, and we always will be. But to be honest, I shot that guy in particular because he’s kind of a douchebag.”

             
“I, too, shoot people I don’t like in the face.” He turned the cellphone over and over in his hands. “But fairies?”

             
“For all of your intents and purposes, we’re immortal. It’s easier to show than tell in this case. You’ll have your answers soon.”

             
That seemed to shut him up.

---

              As the day wore into night, Sid ground her teeth against exhaustion. During winter she could go for days without sleep, and in the midst of battle there was no time to be tired. But driving! Driving down an infuriatingly boring stretch of road as spring bloomed into summer. It felt like her brain was encased in cotton.

             
She pulled into a gas station and handed Chris a credit card with some non-descript name on it. “Fill it up.”

             
He saluted her sarcastically, but he was less likely to run with a job to do. Sid chanced leaving him alone long enough to slip into the gas station and make two cups of cheap coffee. Her own she kept black. Into the other, smaller cup she added cream, sugar, and a finely ground dosage of strong sleeping pills.

             
If the clerk saw her do it, he didn’t give a damn.

             
Back on the highway, Sid chugged down her iron-tinged coffee and watched Chris take ginger sips of his. She drove until his head tilted back and his breathing became deep and even.

             
Sid pulled off into a rest stop bordered by a deep forest, just a bathroom and a few scattered picnic tables. Checking once to make sure her gun was loaded, she reclined her seat back and settled into an uneasy rest.

---

              Sid jerked awake. Something was wrong. Her head was a haze of sweet scents: funeral flowers and corpses. She hadn’t even opened her eyes before she rolled sideways and heard a knife tear into her headrest. She threw out her elbow, and it hit her attacker’s ribcage with a satisfying thud.

             
She tore the car door open and rolled onto the pavement, coming to kneel with her gun half-drawn. Not fast enough. The Lily Knight was on her, knocking her gun to the asphalt with a clatter. He stabbed at her again, but she grabbed at his wrist and twisted. He refused to let go of his knife, brought his other fist around in a vicious hook. Sid went limp, dragging all of her weight on his captive arm. His punch went over her head, but they both hit the pavement hard.

             
The Lily Knight rammed his knee into her stomach. Winded and thoroughly pissed off, Sid slammed the crown of her head into his face. He pummeled at her, but she head-butted him again and again until he finally went limp.

             
Even weak as he was from the gunshot wound, it felt like the fight had taken hours. Her ears rang, and she was sure her forehead was gashed open and bleeding. For a long moment she just lay there, waiting for her thoughts to reorder themselves. When they finally did, she couldn’t say she was pleased.

             
Chris.

             
Sid pushed the Lily Knight off of her with a grunt and stood up. Blood dribbled over her eye. No sign of Chris in the car or huddled someplace sensible. On the other hand, no sign of his well-stabbed body either.

             
First things first. Sid popped the trunk, then manhandled the Lily Knight into it. She used his knife to sever the safety release, and laid the tire iron over his chest for good measure. She slammed the trunk shut, then retrieved her gun.

             
She checked Chris’s coffee; not a centimeter lower than she’d poured it. He’d tricked her, the bastard. Mortals were as infuriating as the Summer Court when they wanted to be.

             
Sid grabbed a handful of napkins out of the glove compartment and pressed them to her bloody forehead as she thought. The first thing most mortals would have done was walk the highway in hopes of hitching a ride. But this road was nigh on deserted, and Chris had proven himself cleverer than straight lines. That left the woods, a hike, and a pain in her ass. Sid was not a particularly deft magical sort, but she’d have to manage.

             
Her duffle bag was in the backseat. She grabbed it and went to sit in the grass among old picnic tables. There was a trick all fae learned as children, a little cantrip mostly used to cheat at games. She pulled a notebook and a pencil out of the bag, stuff she’d bought at a drugstore somewhere. Tradition demanded parchment and ink, but she was mortal blooded enough that magic didn’t get finicky with her.

             
Ripping a page out of her notebook, she folded it into a rough arrow. On the front she wrote
Christopher Protz.
Then she swiped her thumb through the last bit of blood on her head, just enough to leave a clear fingerprint. She popped the arrow in her mouth and chewed meditatively, ignoring the taste of pulp and blood.

             
Crude, but effective. Sid stood up and brushed grass off her pants. Intuition, solidified now, led her into the forest. She left her duffle bag behind; she’d get a new one later, and make Chris pay for it. Her car keys she chucked in the opposite direction, hopeful that the Lily Knight would spend a few days in her trunk at least.

---

              As tired as Sid had been, it wasn’t hard to imagine Chris’s hefty head start. On top of that, the forest hated her cold presence. She kept tripping on roots and vines, and once or twice found herself wishing she had a defter gift with magic, just to freeze some damnably green things to death. Chris would be lucky if she let him have a conscious thought between here and the next safe place in the Thoroughfare.

             
Vicious swearing broke the silence. That, and the trumpeting scream of something she really didn’t want to deal with. Sid wasn’t surprised the Lily Knight had been deemed incompetent enough to require back up; she was surprised the Summer Court had gone through the trouble of corralling a unicorn. Was Chris that important to them? Unicorns were hard to control, but could understand the difference between ‘kill’ and ‘subdue.’ Sid hoped for Chris’s sake that this wasn’t the Summer Court taking Sid’s offense against them out on Chris.

             
Unicorns were the enforcers of choice for brutal houses like Lily. Once upon a time, Sid supposed, unicorns might have been something other than barely coherent beings of pure, vitriolic rage. Then humans had discovered the many exciting configurations of their various bits and pieces, and unicorns had never quite gotten over the lack of good virgins. A rather commendable lack, in Sid’s opinion, but unicorns were nature’s killjoys.

             
The unicorn screamed again, a disquieting combination of panicked horse and hungry mountain lion. Sid sprinted forward, following the convenient sound of Chris’s continued cursing now. The unicorn had him cornered against a half-eroded hillside, crumbling soil at his back and underbrush tangling his feet. He had armed himself with a tree branch. Industrious.

             
The unicorn was far larger than any mortal horse, dainty on its spindly feet and cloven hooves. Its lion’s mane and whipcord tail shimmered independent of light, and where it stepped it left flowers in its wake, blooming in a full and vibrant rainbow. Its horn was razor sharp, and rage lathered its mouth.

             
Chris swung his tree branch at its head. It reared back, trumpeting madly. Sid gave Chris points for dodging under its silver hooves as it came crashing back down to the earth, but he was mortal, terrified, and visibly dragging. Sid knelt just long enough to pull a long iron knife out of her boot, then drew her gun and emptied the rest of her clip into the unicorn’s ass. It wheeled to face her, and its eyes were like diamonds in the sunlight.

             
Even if it had orders not to kill Chris, it would never hold back for Sid’s sake. The Lily Knight she hadn’t feared, but a unicorn didn’t need to spread her ashes to promise her death. She dropped the useless gun, turned her knife in her hand, and hoped Chris wouldn’t try to help.

             
It charged. Sid held her ground as long as she could before sweeping sideways, gouging a long line down the unicorn's ribs as it ran past her. She wished, desperately, for a sword with good reach and a heavy shield. Of the whole Court and its handful of half-mortals, she was the only one permitted to keep weapons forged of iron. With all of her resources available, she could have laid this thing low in minutes. What she had was one knife and a panicked mortal.

             
Sid darted in, aiming for those crystal eyes, and achieved approximately fuck all before it lashed out with its front hooves and caught her in the chest. A mortal would have died; Sid backed the hell off.

             
They circled each other, wary. Out of the corner of her eye, Sid could see Chris setting his shoulders, steeling himself to be brave and heroic. Time to end it, before her mission ended with him in an unfortunate pulpy state. She stopped, stood still with her back straight and stared the unicorn down. It lowered its horn and charged, roses springing to life in its wake. At the last possible second, she fisted a hand in its mane and pulled herself onto its back.