A Stroke Of Midnight

Marquez’s eyebrows went up.

I’d first met Joa

We exchanged small talk, then she said, “I assume you didn’t call at this hour for a social reason.”

“No.” I gave her the briefest sketch of the situation.

She was silent for a second or two. “What do you need from me?”

I explained some of what Marquez had said, and added, “And he threatened that if I didn’t let him in now, he would make certain the FBI didn’t help us later, if we needed their expertise to solve the crime. Could you talk to him for me?”

She laughed. “You could have called the diplomatic service, talked to your ambassador. You could have called a dozen people, but you called me first. You did call me first, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” I said.

She laughed again, and I knew she liked that I had called her first. I also knew she liked that I hadn’t asked her to talk to her husband. “Put him on the line,” she said, and her voice had already taken on that cultured, almost purring edge that it had on radio or television.

I handed the phone to Marquez. He looked a little pale around the edges. His end of the conversation was mostly “Yes, ma’am. No, ma’am. Of course not, ma’am.” He handed the phone back to me, managing to look angry and sick at the same time.

“I think he’ll behave himself now,” she said.

“Thank you, very much, Joa

“When you’ve finally picked a husband, you better invite me to the engagement party.” She was quiet for a second, then said, “I am sorry about what happened with Griffin. I saw the tabloid photos he gave to the reporters. I have no words to say how sorry I am that he turned out to be a such a bastard.”

“I’m okay about it.”

“Good for you.”

“And you will get an invitation to the engagement party, and to the wedding.”

She laughed again with honest delight. “All of faerie decked out for a wedding, I can hardly wait.”

“Thank you, Joa

“No, I’ve had about all I can stand tonight, thank you very much, Princess Meredith,” he said, and gave me a look that said I’d made an enemy. Gee, an enemy that wouldn’t try to kill me. It was almost refreshing.

“You and your lab will be available if we need your expertise?” I asked, keeping my voice neutral.

“I promised Mrs. Billings we would be.”

“Great,” I said, then turned to Major Walters. He was trying not to look pleased and failing. He practically beamed at me. Local police spend a lot of time getting their hats handed to them by the feds; for once the shoe was on the other foot, and Walters was enjoying it. He waited until we’d walked out into the snow with a circle of my guards hiding us from the feds before he burst out laughing. A man of iron self-control.

CHAPTER 15

IT WAS FROST WHO PLACED HIS HAND AGAINST THE SNOW covered hill and called the door. The opening appeared with a peal of music that made all the policemen smile, even Major Walters. It was the door to faerie, all humans go through smiling, but they don’t always come out that way. Inside this hollow hill was a human who was going out in a body bag.

The door stretched wide and bright, though I knew the light was actually dim. It looked bright because we’d been walking in the snowy dark.

The police hit that dimly lit hallway and made exclamations of surprise. Cops do not show surprise, at least not those who have been on the job awhile. Cops are the best ever at jaded tiredness, boredom. Been there, done that, didn’t want the T-shirt. One of the uniforms said, “Oh, my God, the colors are so beautiful.”

The walls were grey and empty. There was no color.

Major Walters stared up at those bare walls, as if he saw something indescribably beautiful. All their faces showed delight, wonderment. Some oohed and aahed as if they were watching fireworks. The guards and I looked at empty grey walls.

“Rhys, did you forget to use the oil on the nice policemen?”

“The reporters didn’t need it,” he said. “How was I to know that hard-boiled police and forensic scientists would be more susceptible to faerie magic?”

“They should not be,” Frost said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“The queen gave vials of oil to the guard as a precaution in case the reporters became befuddled by the magic that is intrinsic to the sithen, but it was merely a precaution. The main hallways of the sithen have not affected humans in this way for more than fifty years.”

“Well,” I said, looking at the humans who were gazing around them as if the hallway were a carnival midway, “whatever is causing this, we need it to stop or they are useless to us. They can’t do policework like this.”

“Did a spell cause it?” Arzhel asked as he pushed the dark fur of his cloak back from a face framed by thick brown curls that spilled down to his knees. That thick mane of fur was held back from his face only by a silver circlet. He was dressed in hardened leather armor, sewn here and there with silver. His body under the armor was tattooed with fur, much as Nicca’s had been with his wings. The tattoo was so real that it made you want to pet the fur that was not there. His face and most of the front of his body was bare and pale and as moonlight, like my own skin. It made the brown and gold of the fur look darker by contrast. With his armor and cloak, he could almost have passed for a human, except for the eyes. They were a reddish brown, a color that could have been human but wasn’t. They weren’t sidhe eyes either, but those of an animal of some kind. I’d found a picture in a book once, a two-page close-up of the eyes of a bear. Staring at the picture I knew I’d seen those eyes in Arzhel’s face.

“It is not a spell,” Frost said. “We would feel it.”

Arzhel nodded. “Have you searched for it?”

“I have.”

“As have I,” said Crystall, his voice like chimes in the wind. He was still hidden behind his white cloak.

“Use the oil on them,” I said. “Ears, eyes, mouth, hands, the works.”

Arzhel asked, “The works?”

“The princess means to make certain they can function completely unaffected by the sithen,” Rhys said, undoing his trench coat and taking a small stoppered bottle from the i