Iron Kissed

"Hendrick?"

"The guy with the forest in his backyard. He was one of the Hunters. His death pretty much eliminated all the human suspects. He was pretty tough." There was a crashing sound. "Sorry. Stupid corded phone—I pulled it off the table. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. A walking stick, huh? It just keeps showing up?"

"That's right."

"Can you describe it to me?"

"It's about four feet long, made of some sort of twisty wood with a gray finish. It's got a ring of silver on the bottom and a silver cap with Celtic designs on the top. I can't think why someone would keep bringing it back to me."

"I don't think anyone is bringing it to you. I think it is following you around on its own."

"What?"

"Some of the older things develop a few quirks. Power begets power and all that. Some of the things made when our power was more than it is now, they can become a little unpredictable. Do things they weren't meant to."

"Like follow me around. Do you think it followed O'Do

"No. Oh, no. I don't think it did that at all. The walking stick was created to be of use to humans who help the fae. It's probably following you around because you are trying to help Dad when everyone else has their fingers up their noses."

"So O'Do

"Mercy…" There was a choking sound. "Damn it. Mercy, I can't tell you. I am forbidden. A geas, Uncle Mike said, for the protection of the fae, of me, and of you."

"It has something to do with your father's situation?" I thought. "With the walking stick? Were other things stolen? Is there anyone who can talk to me? Someone you could call and ask?"

"Look," he said slowly, as if he was waiting for the geas to stop him again, "there's an antiquarian bookstore in the Uptown Mall in Richland. You might go talk to the man who runs it. He might be able to help you find out more about that stick. Make sure you tell him that I sent you to him—but wait until he's alone in the store."

"Thank you."

"No, Mercy, thank you." He paused, and then for a moment sounding a bit like the nine-year-old I'd first met, he said, "I'm scared, Mercy. They mean to let him take the fall, don't they?"

"They were," I said. "But I think it might be too late. The police are not accepting his guilt at face value and we found Zee a terrific lawyer. I'm doing a little nosing about in O'Do

"Mercy," he said quietly. "Jeez, Mercy, are you setting yourself up against the Gray Lords? You know that's what the blind woman is, right? Sent to make sure they get the outcome they want."

"The fae don't care who did it," I told him. "Once it's been established that it was a fae who killed O'Do

"And even though my father has done everything he can think of to dissuade you, you're not going to back down," he said.

Of course. Of course.

"He's trying to keep me out of it," I whispered.

There was a short pause. "Don't tell me you thought he was really mad at you?"

"He's calling in his loan," I told him as a knot of pain slowly unknotted. Zee knew what the fae would do and he'd been trying to keep me out of danger.

How had he put it? She'd better hope I don't get out. Because if I got him out, the Gray Lords would be unhappy with me.

"Of course he is. My father is brilliant and older than dirt, but he has this unreasoning fear of the Gray Lords. He thinks they can't be stopped. Once he realized how the wind was blowing, he would do his best to keep everyone else out of it."

"Tad, stay at school," I told him. "There's nothing you can do here except get into trouble. The Gray Lords don't have jurisdiction over me."

He snorted. "I'd like to see you tell them that—except that I like you just as you are: alive."

"If you come here, they will kill you—how is that going to help your father? Tear up that ticket and I'll do my best. I'm not alone. Adam knows what's up."

Tad really respected Adam. As I hoped, it was the right touch.

"All right, I'll stay here. For now. Let me see if I can give you a little more help—and how far this damned geas Uncle Mike set on me goes."

There was a long pause as he worked through things.

"Okay. I think I can talk about Nemane."

"Who?"

"Uncle Mike said the Carrion Crow, right? And I assume he wasn't talking about the smallish crow that lives in the British Isles, but the Carrion Crow."

"Yes. The three white feathers on her head seemed to be important."

"It must be Nemane then." There was satisfaction in his voice.

"This is a good thing?"

"Very good," he said. "There are some of the Gray Lords who would just as soon kill everyone until the problems go away. Nemane is different."

"She doesn't like to kill."

Tad sighed. "Sometimes you are so i

"That doesn't sound promising," I muttered.

Tad heard. "The thing about the old warriors is that they have a sense of honor, Mercy. Pointless death or wrongful death is an anathema to them."

"She won't want to kill your father," I said.

He corrected me gently. "She won't want to kill you. I'm afraid that, except to you, my father is an acceptable loss."

"I'll see what I can do to change that."

"Go get that book," he said, then coughed a bit. "Stupid geas." There was real rage in his voice. "If it cost me my father, I'm going to have a talk with Uncle Mike. Get that book, Mercy, and see if you can't find something that will give you some bargaining room."

"You'll stay there?"

"Until Friday. If nothing breaks by then, I'm coming home."

I almost protested, but said good-bye instead. Zee was Tad's father—I was lucky he agreed to wait until Friday.

The Uptown Mall is a conglomeration of buildings cobbled together into a strip mall. The stores range from a doughnut bakery to a thrift store, plus bars, restaurants, and even a pet store. The bookstore wasn't hard to find.

I'd been there a time or two, but since my reading tastes run more to sleazy paperbacks than collectibles, it wasn't one of my regular haunts. I was able to park in front of the store, next to a handicapped space.

I thought for a moment it had already closed. It was after six and the store looked deserted from the outside. But the door opened easily with a jingle of mellow cowbells.

"A minute, a minute," someone called from the back.

"No trouble," I said. I took in a deep breath to see what my nose could tell me, but there were too many smells to separate much out: nothing holds smells like paper. I could detect cigarettes and various pipe tobaccos, and stale perfume.

The man who emerged from the stacks of bookcases was taller than me and somewhere between thirty-five and fifty. He had fine hair that was easing gracefully from gold to gray. His expression was cheerful and shifted smoothly into professional when he saw that I was a stranger.

"What can I help you with?" he asked.

"Tad Adelbertsmiter, a friend of mine, told me you could help me with a problem I have," I told him and showed him the stick I was carrying.

He took a good look at it and paled, losing the amiable expression. "Just a moment," he said. He locked the front door, changing the old-fashioned paper sign to CLOSED and pulling down the shades over the window.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Mercedes Thompson."

He gave me a sharp-eyed look. "You're not fae."

I shook my head. "I'm a VW mechanic."