There’s no excuse for my lack of attention to detail.
A woman by herself always has to be alert, and a woman who’s had the experiences I’ve had has extra cause for alarm when blips are on her radar. The security light was still on at the house and and the backyard looked normal, it was true. I had even glimpsed Amelia in the kitchen through a window. I hurried to the back steps, my purse slung over my shoulder, my trowel and water guns inside it, my keys in my hand.
But anything can be hiding in the shadows, and it takes only a moment’s inattention for a trap to spring.
I heard a few words in a language I didn’t recognize, but for a second I thought,
And then I didn’t know a thing.
Chapter 17
My thoughts were anything but speedy. However, the sense of wrongness rose to the top of my consciousness with a kind of dismaying certainty. I was not where I was supposed to be, and I shouldn’t be wherever I was. At the moment, these seemed like two separate and distinct thoughts.
Someone had bopped me on the head.
I thought about that. My head didn’t feel sore, exactly: it felt thick, as if I had a bad cold and had taken a serious decon gestant on top of that. So, I concluded (with all the speed of a turtle), I had been knocked out magically rather than physically. The result was about the same. I felt like hell, and I was scared to open my eyes. At the same time, I very much wanted to know who was in this space with me. I braced myself and made my eyelids open. I caught a glimpse of a lovely and indifferent face, and then my eyelids clamped shut again. They seemed to be operating on their own timetable.
“She’s joining us,” said someone.
“Good; we can have some fun,” said another voice.
That didn’t sound promising at all. I didn’t think the fun was going to be anything I could enjoy, too.
I figured I could get rescued anytime now, and that would be just fine.
But the cavalry didn’t ride in. I sighed and forced my eyes open again. This time the lids stayed apart, and by the light of a torch—a real, honest-to-God flaming wood torch—I examined my captors. One was a male fairy. He was as lovely as Claudine’s brother Claude and just about as charming—which is to say, not at all. He had black hair, like Claude’s, and handsome features and a buff body, like Claude’s. But his face couldn’t even simulate interest in me. Claude was at least able to fake it when circumstances required that.
I looked at Kidnapper Number Two. She hardly seemed more promising. She was a fairy, too, and therefore lovely, but she didn’t appear to be any more lighthearted or fun-loving than her companion. Plus, she was wearing a body stocking, or something very like one, and she looked good in it, which in and of itself was enough to make me hate her.
“We have the right woman,” Two said. “The vampire-loving whore. I think the one with short hair was a bit more attractive.”
“As if any human can truly be lovely,” said One.
It wasn’t enough to be kidnapped; I had to be insulted, too. Though their words were the last thing in the world I needed to be worrying about, a little spark of anger lit in my chest.
I hoped they hadn’t hurt Amelia or Bubba.
I hoped Bill was all right.
I hoped he’d called Eric and my great-grandfather.
That was a lot of hoping. As long as I was in the wishful-thinking zone, I wished that Eric was tuned in to my very great distress and my very real fear. Could he track me by my emotions? That would be wonderful, because I was certainly full of them. This was the worst fix I’d ever been in. Years ago, when Bill and I had exchanged blood, he’d told me he’d be able to find me. I hoped he’d been telling the truth, and I hoped that ability hadn’t faded with time. I was willing to be saved by just about anybody. Soon.
Kidnapper One slid his hands under my armpits and yanked me to a sitting position. For the first time, I realized my hands were numb. I looked down to see they were tied with a strip of leather. Now I was propped up against a wall, and I could see I was not actually in a cave. We were in an abandoned house. There was a hole in the roof, and I could see stars through it. The smell of mildew was strong, almost choking, and under it trailed the scents of rotting wood and wallpaper. There was nothing in the room but my purse, which had been tossed into a corner, and an old framed photograph, which hung crookedly on the wall behind the two fairies. The picture had been taken outside, probably in the nineteen twenties or thirties, and it was of a black family dressed up for their picture-taking adventure. They looked like a farming family. At least I was still in my own world, I figured, though probably not for long.
While I could, I smiled at Thing One and Thing Two. “My great-grandfather is going to kill you,” I said. I even managed to sound pretty happy about that. “You just wait.”
One laughed, tossing his black hair behind him in a male modelly gesture. “He’ll never find us. He’ll yield and step down rather than see you killed in a slow and painful way. He
Two said, “He should have gone to the Summerland long ago. Consorting with humans will kill us off even faster than we are dying already. Breandan will seal us off. We’ll be safe. Niall is out of date.”
Like he’d expired on the shelves or something.
“Tell me you have a boss,” I said. “Tell me you’re not the brains of the operation.” I was sort of aware that I was seriously addled, probably as a result of the spell that had knocked me out, but knowing I wasn’t myself didn’t seem to stop me talking, which was a pity.
“We owe allegiance to Breandan,” One said proudly, as if that would make everything clear to me.
Instead of connecting their words with my great-grandfather’s archenemy, I pictured the Brandon I’d gone to high school with, who’d been a running back on the football team. He’d gone to Louisiana Tech and then into the air force. “He got out of the service?” I said.
They stared at me with a total lack of comprehension. I couldn’t really fault them for that. “Service of whom?” asked Two.
I was still blaming her for saying I was a skank, and I decided I wasn’t speaking to her. “So, what’s the program?” I asked One.
“We wait to hear from Niall, who will respond to Breandan’s demands,” he said. “Breandan will seal us all in Faery, and we will never have to deal with your like again.”
At the moment, that seemed like an excellent plan, and I was temporarily on Breandan’s side.
“So Niall doesn’t want that to happen?” I said, trying to keep my voice steady.
“No, he wants to visit the likes of you. While Fintan hid the knowledge of you and your brother, Niall behaved himself, but when we removed Fintan—”
“Bit by bit!” said Two, and laughed.
“He was able to find enough information to track you down. And so did we. We found your brother’s house one day, and there was a gift outside in a truck. We decided to have some fun with it. We followed your scent to where you work, and we left your brother’s wife and the abomination outside for all to see. Now we’re going to have some fun with you. Breandan has said we can do with you what we will, short of death.”
Maybe my slow wits were speeding up a little. I understood that they were enforcers for my great- grandfather’s enemy, and that they had killed my grandfather Fintan and crucified poor Crystal.
“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” I said, quite desperately. “Hurt me, that is. Because after all, what if this Breandan doesn’t get what he wants? What if Niall wins?”
“In the first place, that’s not likely,” Thing Two said. She smiled. “We plan to win, and we plan to have
