Rhys drove, and Barinthus had the backseat to himself. I had the shotgun seat though no real shotgun. I was carrying my Lady Smith because they’d told us not to bring the police, or more than two guards; they hadn’t said not to bring weapons, so we were all loaded for Dragon.
I was also wearing a folding knife in a thigh sheath under my summer skirt, not because I thought I’d use it to cut someone, but because cold steel cuts through most glamour. If I’d had less human or brownie blood in me, I might not have been able to bear the knife next to my skin, but I wasn’t just one thing. I was the sum of my parts. I kept thinking calm thoughts as Rhys drove up into the hills. I hoped that what little dinner I’d eaten wasn’t something my new baby-rich body didn’t like. I didn’t want to throw up all over the bad guys, or then again, maybe I did. It would certainly be distracting.
In a pinch I could fake morning sickness. I held the thought in reserve, and prayed to Goddess and Consort that Julian wasn’t hurt badly and that we would get out safe, and none of us would get hurt. That was my prayer as we drove into the growing dusk.
There was no smell of roses to accompany the prayer.
Chapter Fourty-six
We were twenty minutes early when Rhys pulled into the small gravel parking area. What do you do when you arrive early at the kidnappers’ rendezvous? Do you get out? Do you wait? What would Miss Manners say about it? I was betting it wasn’t in any of her books.
Rhys got out first, then Barinthus. He got the door for me and gave me his hand as I stepped out. I had a little jacket on over the skirt and summer blouse to hide the Lady Smith at the small of my back. Rhys and Barinthus were both in lightweight trench coats to hide their guns, knives, swords, and for Rhys a small axe at his back. Some of the weapons were even magical holy items. I had left mine at home, because the sword that had come to my hand had only one purpose and that was to kill and kill messily. We would at least pretend we were here for something else. If the police did get called we had to be able to at least fake the thought that we’d come to rescue Julian and not to kill Steve and his little girlfriend. I was betting we’d get to all the above, but we needed wiggle room in case one of the neighbors called the cops.
We went to the door as if we were visiting. It felt almost wrong to ring the doorbell and wait for them to answer. Doyle had called us in the car and they hadn’t risked the wards for fear of getting Julian killed before they could rescue him. So when we went through the door Barinthus would throw off enough magic to set off every ward they had. If we timed it right they would get in at the same time. I trusted Doyle to time it right.
Rhys rang the doorbell. They had put me between the two of them. I’d been given my orders to not show myself until Rhys said differently. I couldn’t see anything but that the door opened.
Rhys’s matter-of-fact voice was my first hint that … “The barrel of a gun isn’t a very friendly way to start a visit.”
“Where is the princess?”
“Wave to the man, Merry.”
I waved above his wide shoulders.
“Fine, come inside, but if you try any magic your friend will be dead before you can get to him. Bittersweet is with him now.”
I didn’t like the sound of that, but I followed Rhys back through the door. The moment I passed it the wards flared along my skin so powerfully magic that they took my breath for a moment. I’d never felt anything like it, not even in faerie itself.
Barinthus came through last and did what we’d planned. He flared his magic like throwing wide a cloak to make certain you tripped the alarm. But it wasn’t noise that these alarms made, it was magic.
Rhys kept me behind him, shielded by his body. “You’ve got your wards set too sensitive for Barinthus. Easy, he was Mannan Mac Lir. That’s a lot of magic to get inside these wards.”
If Barinthus hadn’t been so bloody spectacular in physical appearance it might not have worked, but it was hard to stare up at a seven-foot-tall man with hair every shade of blue of the world’s oceans and elliptical pupils in his blue eyes like some deep-sea creature and not understand just how much magic was standing in front of you.
Bittersweet came whirring down from the balcony that looked out over the huge open living room. It was one of the biggest great rooms I’d ever seen. I saw her past Rhys’s shoulder as he and Barinthus tried to talk Steve Patterson into lowering the gun.
She had a bloody knife in her hand almost as big as she was, and just from the look on her face I knew she was Bitter, and not Sweet. We were about to meet her Hyde face-to-face.
“She’s coming at our backs, Rhys,” I said quietly.
“I’m worried about the gun,” he said between smiling lips as he tried to calm Patterson down.
I turned to face her, and yelled out, “I’m here to help you be able to make love to Steve.” It was the only thing I could think of that might get through the bloodlust I saw on her face.
It did make her hover in the air on her furiously beating wings. Blood dripped heavily and thickly off the tip of the improbably long knife. It had to have a wooden or ceramic handle around all that metal or she wouldn’t have been able to hold it.
“They’re here to help us, Bitter. They’ll help you be big enough for everything we want.”
She blinked again as if she heard him but couldn’t understand. I wondered if we were too late for reason. Had her mental illness eaten her to the point where bloodlust was more important to her than love?
“Bittersweet,” he said, “please, honey, can you hear me?” I wasn’t the only one worried about her.
“Bittersweet,” I said, “do you want to be with Steve?”
Her tiny face screwed up with concentration and then finally she nodded.
“Good,” I said. “I’m here to help you be with Steve the way you want to be with him.”
Her face was emptying out or filling up. The rage was leaking away, but more personality was coming into her eyes, her face. The knife fell from her hands to clang on the floor and spatter blood so that some droplets hit my skirt. I did my best not to flinch. It wasn’t the blood; it was the thought of it being Julian’s.
Bittersweet looked at her hands and the fallen knife and wailed. That was the only word for it. It was one of the worst sounds I’d ever heard come from someone. It held despair and torment and utter hopelessness. If the Christian Hell exists, then people should make that sound there.
“Steve, Steve, what did I do now? What did you let me do? I told you not to let me hurt him.”
“Bittersweet, is that you?”
“For now,” she said, and she looked at me. There was weariness in her face. “You can’t make me big, can you?”
“I might be able to, but the Goddess would have to bless us.”
“There is no blessing here,” she said. “The Goddess doesn’t talk to me anymore.” She landed on the floor and looked up at me. She was nude, but there was so much blood I hadn’t been able to tell until she got close. What had she done to Julian? Were Doyle and the others inside the house? Were they rescuing Julian?
She held her hand out to me. I knelt down. Rhys said, “Merry, I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Put the gun down,” Barinthus said.
The men danced their three-way gun dance, but for me the world had narrowed down to the small blood-drenched figure on the carpet. I offered her my hand and she wrapped a small hand around one finger. She tried to call her glamour and roll me as she could some humans, but she truly didn’t have enough power. It was as if she’d gotten the appearance of her demi-fey father, but her magic was brownie. It was so unfair.