The spectral light from my amulet showed me Billy"s strained face first, and then the area immediately around us. The double doors were gone. Only a blank stone wall remained where they had been.
"Gulp," Billy said. He shook his head for a moment, dazed. "Where did they go?"
I rested my fingers against the stone wall, reaching out for it with my wizard"s senses. Nothing. It was rock, not illusion. "Beats the h.e.l.l out of me. The doors here must have been a way to some other location."
"Like some kind of teleport?"
"More like a temporary entrance into the Nevernever," I said. "Or a shortcut through the Nevernever to another place on Earth."
"Kind of intense in there. When she made it get all cold. I"ve never seen anything like that before."
"Sloppy," I said. "She was laying a binding on Slate. Her power was sloshing over into changing the temperature. A child could do better."
Billy let out a short, quiet laugh. "After what we just saw, anyone else would still be shaking. You"re giving her the rating from the Russian judge."
"So sue me." I shrugged. "She"s strong. Strong isn"t everything."
Billy glanced up at me. "Could you do what she did?"
"I"d probably use fire."
His eyebrows went up, his expression impressed. "Do you really think Maeve"s not the killer?"
"I do," I said. "This murder was clean enough to look like an accident. Maeve"s obviously got impulse-control issues. Doesn"t make for much of a methodical murderer."
"What about Slate?"
I shook my head, my brow tightening. "Not sure about him. He"s mortal. There"s nothing that says he couldn"t lie to us. But I got what I was looking for, and I found out a couple of things on top of that."
"So why are you frowning?"
"Because all I got was more questions. Everyone"s been telling me to hurry. Faeries don"t do that. They"re practically immortal and they"re not in a rush. But Mab and Grimalkin both have tried to rush me now. Maeve went for the high-pressure sales tactic too, like she didn"t have time for anything more subtle."
"Why would they do that?"
I sighed. "Something"s in motion. If I don"t run down the killer, the Courts could go to war with one another."
"That would explain the whole World War Two dress motif back there."
"Yeah, but not why time would be so pressing." I shook my head. "If we could have stayed longer, I might have been able to work out more, but it was getting too nervous in there."
"Discretion, valor," Billy said by way of agreement. "We leave now, right?"
"Elidee?" I asked. I felt a stirring in my hair, and then the tiny pixie popped out to hover in the air in front of me. "Can you lead us back to my car?"
The pixie flashed in the affirmative and zipped away. I lifted my amulet and followed.
Billy and I didn"t speak until our guide had led us out of the underground complex not far from where I"d parked the Blue Beetle. We cut through an alley.
About halfway down it, Billy grabbed my arm and jerked me bodily behind him, snapping, "Harry, get back!"
In the same motion he swung out one foot and kicked a metal trash can. It went flying, crashing into something I hadn"t seen behind it. Someone let out a short, harsh gasp of pain. Billy stepped forward and picked up the metal lid that had fallen to the ground. He swung it down at the shape. It struck with a noisy crash.
I took a couple of steps back to make sure I was clear of the action, and reached for my amulet again. "Billy," I said, "what the h.e.l.l?"
I felt the sudden presence at my back half a second too late to get out of the way. A hand the size of a dinner plate closed on the back of my neck like a vice and lifted. I felt my heels rise until my toes were just barely touching the ground.
A voice, a feminine contralto, growled, "Let go of the amulet and call him off, wizard. Call him off before I break your neck."
Chapter Sixteen [image]
Being held up by your neck hurts. Trust me on this one. I lifted my hands by way of attempting to convey compliance and said, "Billy, get off him."
Billy took a step back from the pale-haired young man he"d knocked down. Fix whimpered and scuttled away on his hands and b.u.t.t. His borrowed brown suit was soiled and torn, and his yellow polyester tie hung from his collar by only one of its clips. He put his back against the alley wall, eyes wide beneath his shock of white dandelion hair.
Billy"s eyes flicked from my a.s.sailant to Fix and back. He squinted at her for a moment, then set his jaw in an expression of casual determination. "Harry? You want me to take her?"
"Wait a minute," I managed to say. "Okay, he"s off. Put me down."
The grip on the back of my neck relaxed, and as I touched ground again I took a step toward Billy, turning to face the woman who had held me.
As I expected, it was the tall, muscular young woman from the funeral home, her muddy green hair hanging lankly over her eyes and one cheek. She folded her arms and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "Fix? Are you okay?"
The smaller man panted, "My lip is cut. It isn"t bad."
The woman nodded and faced me again.
"All right," I said. "Who the h.e.l.l are you?"
"My name"s Meryl," she said. Her voice was surprisingly quiet, contrasting with her size. "I wanted to apologize to you, Mr. Dresden. For hitting you and throwing you into the Dumpster."
I raised my eyebrows. "Are you sure you got the right guy, Meryl? No one ever apologizes to me for anything."
She pushed at her hair with one hand. It fell right back over her face. "I"m sorry. I was scared earlier, and I acted without thinking."
I traded a glance with Billy. "Uh, okay. I"m pretty sure lurking in a dark alley to mug me with your apology isn"t the usual way to go about saying you"re sorry. But I didn"t read that Mars-Venus book, so who knows."
Her mouth twitched, and she relaxed her stance by a tiny degree. "I didn"t know how else to find you, so I was just waiting near your car."
"Okay," I said. My neck still throbbed where her fingers had clamped on. Five to one I would have wonderful stripy bruises the next day. I nodded and turned away. "Apology accepted. Now if you"ll excuse me, I have things I need to do."
A note of panic crept into her voice. "Wait. Please."
I stopped and looked back at her.
"I need to talk to you. Just for a minute." She took a deep breath. "I need your help."
Of course she did.
"It"s very important."
Of course it was.
The headache started coming back. "Look, Meryl, I"ve got a lot on my plate already."
"I know," she said. "Investigating Ron"s death. I think I can help you."
I pursed my lips. "You were close to Reuel?"
She nodded. "Me. Fix. Ace. And Lily."
I flashed back on the photo of Reuel and the four young people. "Green-haired girl? Very cute?"
"Yes."
"Where"s Ace?"
"He had to go to work right after the funeral. But Lily"s why I need to talk to you. She"s missing. I think she"s in trouble."
I started filling in context on the conversation I"d overheard between them. "Who are you?"
"I told you. My name is Meryl."
"Okay, fine.What are you, Meryl?" are you, Meryl?"
She flinched at the question. "Oh. I"m sorry, I didn"t know what you meant." She raked at her hair again. "I"m a changeling. We all are."
"A what?" Billy asked.
I nodded, getting it. "Changeling," I said to Billy. "She"s half mortal and half fae."
"Aha," Billy said. "Which means what?"
I shrugged. "It means that she has to choose whether to remain a mortal or become wholly fae."
"Yes," she said. "And until then I"m under the rule of the Court of my fae father. Winter. The others too. That"s why the four of us stuck together. It was safer."
Billy nodded. "Oh."
"Meryl," I said, "what makes you think your friend is in trouble?"
"She"s not very independent, Mister Dresden. We share an apartment. She doesn"t have a very good idea of how to take care of herself, and she gets nervous if she"s out of the apartment for too long."
"And what do you think happened to her?"
"The Winter Knight."
Billy frowned. "Why would he hurt people in his own Court?"
Meryl let out a brief, hard laugh. "Because he can. He had a thing for Lily. He would hurt her, frighten her. He got off on it. He was furious when Maeve told him to back off. And once Ron was gone..." Her voice trailed off and she turned her head to one side.
"How does Reuel fit into this?" I asked.
"He was protecting us. Maeve had been torturing us for fun, and we didn"t know where to turn. Ron took us in. He put us under his protection, and no one in Winter was willing to cross him."
"What about your fae dad?" Billy asked. "Didn"t he do anything to look out for you?"
Meryl gave Billy a flat look. "My mother was raped by a troll. Even if he"d been strong enough to do anything about Maeve hurting us, he wouldn"t have. He thinks he"s already done enough by not devouring my mom on the spot."
"Oh," Billy said. "Sorry."
I frowned. "And with the Summer Knight gone, you think Slate grabbed the girl."
Meryl said, "Someone broke into the apartment. It looked like there had been a struggle."
I let out a sigh. "Have you contacted the police?"
She eyed me. "Oh, yeah, of course. I called them and told them that a mortal champion of the fae came and spirited away a half-mortal, half-nixie professional nude model to Faerieland. They were all over it."
I had to admire the well-placed sarcasm. "It doesn"t take a supernatural studm.u.f.fin to cause something very bad to happen to a cute girl in this town. Your plain old mortal kidnappers and murderers can manage just fine."
She shook her head. "Either way, she"s still in trouble."
I lifted a hand. "What do you want from me?"
"Help me find her. Please, Mister Dresden."
I closed my eyes. I didn"t have time, energy, or brainpower to spare for this. The smart thing would be to blow her off entirely, or to promise her I"d do it and promptly forget about it. "This just isn"t a good time." I felt like c.r.a.p the second I said it. I didn"t look at the changeling"s face. I couldn"t. "There"s too much trouble already, and I don"t even know if I can help myself, much less your friend. I"m sorry."
I turned to go, but Meryl stepped in front of me. "Wait."
"I told you," I said. "There"s nothing I can-"
"I"ll pay you," Meryl said.
Oh, right. Money.
I was about to lose the office and the apartment, and this faerie work only paid in misery. I needed to pay some bills. Go to the grocery store. My mouth didn"t actually water, but it was close.
I shook my head again. "Look, Meryl, I wish I could-"
"Double your fee," she said, her voice urgent.
Double. My. Fee. I hesitated some more.
"Triple," she said. She reached for her back pocket and produced an envelope. "Plus one thousand cash, up front, right now."