Blade Dance

Ann’s walk home ended up being nerve-racking, and she almost regretted not accepting Finn’s offer to pass her there. She couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was following her, but whenever she tried to surreptitiously check over her shoulder, there was no one.

Stopping at the convenience store had been a mistake. Normally she would have gone straight home, but it hadn’t been a normal night. She’d bought the milk and set it out along with honey on her back porch by way of apology and as an offering, an attempt to make peace with the world she had disbelieved but had proven all too real.

As real as the young toughs who’d tried to intimidate her outside the store. She wished she owned pepper spray or had taken a self-defense class, but it had always seemed too dangerous, given her temper. She thought back to the playground incident that had gotten her kicked out of school the first time, when the bully of the fourth grade, Tyler Stuart, had struck little Paul Murphy, the smallest kid in the class.

One minute she had been standing on the playground, toe to toe with Tyler, fists clenched in anger, and the next . . . she’d been sitting outside the principal’s office, listening to Tyler’s ragged wail. The bully, twice her size, was crying in great breathless jags, tears streaming down his face, lips torn and purpled, blood dribbling from his mouth.

She’d knocked his two front teeth out.

And she couldn’t remember a thing.

The principal had told her about it afterward, described the fight, but it had sounded to Ann like a story, like something that had happened to someone else.

Her foster parents had tried, they really had. But two more ugly incidents—in hindsight, Tyler seemed to have gotten off easily—and two schools later they were done with her. She bounced back into the system and got lucky. Her caseworker had been a juvenile offender before straightening out and had put in overtime to get Ann the counseling she needed.

It had worked.

By the time Ann had entered high school, she knew how to manage her anger, how to back away from confrontation, how to avoid a fight. Sometimes it was a daily struggle, but it was one she had been winning for a long time.

Self-defense training might give her the upper hand in a mugging—maybe even let her keep her cool and do less damage to those she did tangle with—but what seemed certain was they’d create, even if only for teaching purposes, exactly the conditions that triggered one of her episodes. The very last time it had happened, during middle school, she’d broken a girl’s arm in three places. All she could remember was seeing Effy Cooper put a cigarette out on a sixth grader’s arm. After that, Ann had made a vow that she would never hurt anyone ever again.

Ann realized now that it was probably a little late for pepper spray. She’d just spent the evening with Charlestown’s most dangerous mobster, an organized-crime boss who had proven to her beyond all shadow of a doubt that he wasn’t quite human.

Finn was Fae. And even children knew better than to bargain with fairies. The craziest part was that she’d struck a deal to sleep with him. Jumped on the chance, to be perfectly honest with herself. Even though she knew how that would end.

The way it always ended. In humiliation and rejection. She’d stopped fighting in high school and found a circle of friends, but in her junior year she’d destroyed any chance of having a boyfriend until college. Her prom date had been her secret crush for years, a sandy-haired athlete named Seth. They’d gone to the beach after the party and she’d been ready—more than ready—to lose her virginity with him. She’d been excited about it. Too excited. And aggressive. Too aggressive.

In her eagerness, she’d wrenched his shoulder and broken his nose and gotten labeled, within twenty-four hours, a total psycho nymphomaniac, without ever even losing her virginity. He’d told the tale to all of his teammates, and for the rest of high school they’d called her “beast.”

College had been only marginally better. A string of boyfriends had found her “unladylike” or “unfeminine” or “too rough.” The guy she’d finally slept with had told her to “tone it down.” And when she hadn’t been able to, he’d gotten out of bed in the middle of their lovemaking and left. Humiliated, she’d decided she’d rather be single than be given pointers on how to behave in bed.

She doubted that a supermacho crime lord like Finn would appreciate a woman who was both uncontrollably aggressive and completely unskilled in the sack, which meant, she supposed, that he’d get exactly what he deserved out of their bargain. Maybe that was something, but damn, she wished it made her feel better.

Finn passed home from Ann’s backyard. There were still two beers sitting on the kitchen counter, just where they had left them, and the little platter of meat and vegetables that Ann had found so amusing. The house felt emptier than it had before her visit. After the gathering at the Navy Yard earlier that night, he had wanted nothing but peace and quiet, but now the empty house just felt oppressive.

He took his beer into the TV room, which had once been the taproom back when the building had served as a tavern and still sported a yawning fireplace and Georgian paneling. There, on the pewter-gray sectional, sat the Fae he had been waiting for.

Iobáth had made few concessions to changing fashion or human society since the fall. He wore his nearly white blond hair long. Unbraided, it would undoubtedly touch his knees. His sword was the same enchanted blade he had carried before he had surrendered—uniquely among his race—to the Druids. His tunic was spider silk, embroidered with silver wire. His jeans looked new, but to Finn’s eye they were the only thing about him that was not distinctly Fae.

The Aes Sídhe called him the Wandering Penitent, this warrior who shunned his own kind and spent his days making amends for his role in the drama that had destroyed their world. He was, apart from Conn of the Hundred Battles, the finest Fae swordsman this side of the wall between worlds. That put him on an equal footing with Finn. And made him a dangerous person to deal with.

“How the hell did you get in here?” asked Finn.

Iobáth’s expression didn’t change. He said simply, “There are no wards on the house.”

Of course there weren’t, because Finn’s son wasn’t speaking to him and that meant that the Fianna had no sorcerer to cast such protections. They needed Garrett back. There was a Druid on the loose, for fuck’s sake. “That is part of the reason I summoned you.”

“Understand this,” said Iobáth. “No one summons me. Not even Finn MacUmhaill. I go where my conscience dictates.”

A Fae with a conscience. Finn had always been baffled by the idea, but just lately, in the wake of his falling out with his son, he’d begun to understand a little. “Then it is part of the reason I appealed to your conscience,” said Finn. He was a leader of men. He knew well how to draw warriors to his banner. But Iobáth was no ordinary warrior. He was not motivated by the same desires as other Fae.

“Your message indicated that there was a threat to the wall between worlds.”

“None of us wants the Queen and her Court back,” said Finn. He wasn’t sure whether the chill that ran down his spine at the thought was for the Queen or the cold in the room, so he crossed to the hearth and began to make up the fire.

Iobáth cocked his head. “No? The Prince Consort seems as eager as ever to be reunited with his eternal love, though rumor has it that his sojourn in the Otherworld was not the reunion he had hoped for. Donal would have the Queen back because he despises human weakness and misses exercising power without restraint. You . . . you have never much cared about freeing the Court. Only hunting Druids. And exacting revenge.”

He did not say her name. Finn appreciated that. He did not like hearing her name from others. It was sacred to him. His private mantra. He had repeated it for years. He even talked to her shade, when he was alone and did not know which way to turn, though he had no belief in ghosts or an afterlife. But speaking to her gave him comfort when nothing else did.

“Brigid,” he said, his own desire to speak her name sudden and surprising. “I wanted revenge for Brigid. She died in my arms. And you—you laid down yours and surrendered to the Druids.”

Finn had no idea why he had said it. He was supposed to be recruiting Iobáth, not alienating him, but there it was. Old anger still fresh after all this time.

Iobáth nodded. “I surrendered because I deserved torment and death. I received only torment.”

“Brigid deserved none of it.” The vehemence in his voice shocked him. He discovered that he’d broken the kindling into useless chips and needed to start again.

“Neither did many that suffered,” said Iobáth simply. “But you didn’t ask me here to review old sins. Speak to me of new.”

Finn swallowed the grief that had welled up in him and recalled his purpose. “My son, Garrett. Miach has trained him as a sorcerer, but he has no right hand, no swordsman to fight beside him when he works his spells and to protect him from physical attack.”

Iobáth stood up. “As in the past, we have misunderstood each other. I am no sword for hire.” He headed for the door.

Finn stepped in front of him. An epic piece of stupidity, because he had no weapons, and while he might be a storied leader, he was not the gifted killer Iobáth was. “I would not offer you anything so crass as money. Garrett has allied himself with Miach, and Miach is determined to stop the Prince.”

“And your son has no right hand because he has married Miach’s granddaughter and it is forbidden for a sorcerer to both marry and take a right hand.”

That was it in a nutshell. “You are very well informed.”

“Our race is dwindling. Our world with it. Perhaps it is not surprising that your domestic squabbles seem of great importance in such a tiny, contracting sphere. The Fae do little of note now. Even our feuds, for the most part, have faded to dust.”

“I don’t want my son to die,” said Finn baldly. “And he will get himself killed fighting the Prince if he has no right hand.”

“And you also want your son to return to your banner.”

“That, too,” he admitted.

“Why should I be interested in any of this?” asked Iobáth, his gray eyes as glittery cold as ever.

“Because you have always said that the Queen is rotting in a much deserved hell. If the Prince succeeds, she will again be free to run riot over this world. Only my son and Miach stand against her. Miach has his right hand. Even if they are no longer bound, friendship unites them, and Elada will fight and die for him. My son has nothing.”

“That is a matter of perspective,” said Iobáth, the ghost of a shrug touching his broad shoulders.

“What does that mean?”

Iobáth didn’t answer. Instead, he turned from Finn and paced to the hearth. With a flick of his fingers the birch logs that Finn had stacked there ignited. “Tell me about this Druid who visited your bannerman’s son,” he said.

“How do you know about the Druid?” Finn had only just learned himself a few hours ago. He’d heard talk, as far back as twenty years ago, when the Fae had gathered in New York, that Iobáth had some kind of power of foresight, a direct connection to Dana, that he was the beloved of the goddess, et cetera, et cetera, but that was crap. Dana—presuming she existed and asserted earthly influence at all—had never been one for guilt and repenting.

“Your domain is a small but lively one,” said Iobáth, with something that hinted at a smile. He poked at the fire, which was roaring now.

“Does all this knowledge mean you have taken an interest in our problems?”

“Perhaps,” said Iobáth. “This much I know: The Druid has hurt a child. He must be stopped. But I won’t be a pawn in this game between you and your son. If I choose to fight by his side, it will be because it is right and just to do so.”

Right and just weren’t exactly common Fae motivations, but Iobáth was no ordinary Fae. That was why Finn had summoned him. “My son is at Miach’s. I’ve got a bed for you tonight. In the morning you can go to South Boston.”

“This Druid is preying on the desperation in your community and must be dealt with first,” said Iobáth, “before his magic causes any more harm. Then we shall speak further of your son. I will watch Sean’s house and intercept the Druid when he returns.”

“We all wear the Druid marks from our captivity. That means this creature can command us. He could force us to lay down our arms or fight each other. We’ll need Garrett to cast a charm of silence if we’re to have any chance against him,” said Finn.

“Then go and woo your estranged son, Finn MacUmhaill. I have a Druid to track.”

Ann knew something was wrong when Davin didn’t turn up for school the next morning. She felt the hair on the back of her neck rise when she saw the empty seat. She delayed taking attendance, putting off the inevitable, hoping he would come skidding in the door late, but she knew the boy would not.

She reported Davin’s absence to the principal’s office and asked if Nancy McTeer had called in an excuse, but all she got was a curt “no” from the principal’s secretary and a withering stare that told her no further information would be forthcoming.

All morning she felt Davin’s absence like a missing tooth. He might be sick. Children did get sick. Perhaps he’d gotten an infection from the tattoos and his mother had kept him home. That was a distinct possibility, but it only worried Ann more. She doubted that Davin’s mother would take him to the doctor. A physician would be obligated to report the tattoos to family services.

By snack time she was too distracted to go on with the day’s lesson, so she rolled out the butcher paper that her class loved to draw on and distributed pots of water-soluble paint and markers and chalk and all the art supplies in her cabinet in some desperate offering to the gods who watched over small children.

The afternoon moved with agonizing slowness. At a quarter to three she lined her little charges up and led them to the school doors to wait for the bell. When it rang, they exploded out into the playground, and Ann followed them onto the blacktop.

Some children had parents waiting just outside the school fence. Others struck off in pairs and groups toward home. A few boarded the big yellow bus. And across the street, in the doorway of the free clinic, Nancy McTeer waited.

Davin’s mother wore a slouchy hat, but even the wide brim couldn’t completely hide the bruises. She didn’t see Ann at first. Then their eyes locked.

Ann felt her stomach turn over. Nancy McTeer was looking right at her—glaring at her—with a terrifying expression of hatred.

Ann fought the urge to retreat back inside the school even as Nancy McTeer began to cross the street. She wore tiny pointed heels on her feet in some kind of exotic leather—ostrich maybe—that clicked loudly over the pavement. Her sweater looked like the softest cashmere, rich beyond anything Ann usually saw on her students’ parents. Her jeans were deep indigo with white-stitched seams and obviously expensive. And the price of all that luxury was there in black and blue on her heart-shaped face.

Nancy McTeer stopped on the sidewalk and gripped the school fence with white knuckles. “I know what you’ve been up to,” she said, “interfering in things that don’t concern you. My son is none of your fucking business.”

“Of course he’s my business. He’s my student.”

Nancy shook her head. “Not after today, he isn’t. He won’t be coming back to school. Not once Sean hears about you taking Davin to the nurse and seeing the tattoos. Sean never even wanted the boy enrolled. I insisted on it. And now you’ve ruined everything. And don’t think I don’t know why. You’re using my boy to cozy up to Finn. But you’re not half as smart as you think. He’s cold as ice, the lord of the Fianna, because no woman will ever replace his perfect dead wife.”

Finn was a widower. Finn MacUmhaill ought to be the last thing on Ann’s mind. She was talking to a livid parent about an endangered boy. Nancy McTeer was part of a dangerous world, and the marks of its violence were plain to see on her face.

And all Ann could think was that Finn had a dead wife she hadn’t known about. He was a criminal, not a man she should be interested in. He wasn’t even really a man. He was Fae.

It didn’t matter. She was attracted to him. She felt drawn to him. There was no denying it. And this news made her stomach knot.

“Ask around,” said Nancy McTeer, smirking at Ann’s obvious discomfort. “You’ll find out. Women in Charlestown still line up to fill his bed, because Finn MacUmhaill has a famous name, but they aren’t half sorry when he throws them out. He’s not soft like that human-lover Miach in Southie.” Now her expression turned frosty. “And he lets the Fianna dispense justice as they see fit, so count yourself lucky that today is Davin’s last day in school.”

That’s when the chill slid down her spine. “Davin wasn’t in school today, Ms. McTeer.”

Uncertainty flashed across Nancy McTeer’s bruised but beautiful face. She scanned the playground, now almost entirely empty, and said, “Where is he?”

“I don’t know,” said Ann. “He was absent all day.”

“You called Family Services, didn’t you?” said Nancy, eyes wide, the panic raw in her voice. “They’ve taken my son.”

“I didn’t. You can ask Finn. He promised to keep Davin safe, and I agreed not to call social services.”

Nancy McTeer shook her head, coiffed hair flying about her shoulders. “I don’t believe you. If Davin isn’t here, then you’ve done something with him.”

Ann didn’t like the wild look in Nancy’s eyes. She wanted to retreat to the safety of the school, but a child was missing, so she persevered. “Nancy, when was the last time you saw Davin?”

“This morning, walking out the front door of our house. He was on his way here, to school.”

“He never got here,” said Ann. “I think we should call the police.”

Nancy McTeer’s carefully made-up eyes narrowed to slits. “That’s what you would say if you’d handed my boy to the do-gooders. Call the police,” she mimicked. “Because you know we can’t,” she spat. “If they’ve taken my boy, Sean will come for you.” Now her eyes were alight with an almost supernatural fervor. “Davin is his son. Children are precious to the Fae.”

Something in her tone finally made Ann take a step back. “I don’t know where he is,” said Ann, “but I do think you should report him missing.” She started to edge toward the school doors. Finn’s talk about Druids came back to her. “He could be in danger.”

“Go ahead,” said Nancy McTeer. “Run back to your classroom, Miss Phillips. You won’t be able to hide from the Fianna, not in Charlestown.”

Ann did her best not to run, but she fumbled with the doors and her heart was pounding by the time she was back inside the school.

She needed to report this. Davin’s disappearance and Nancy McTeer’s threats.

Ann climbed the stairs to the principal’s office. She could see the lights still on behind the glass. Just as she reached it, the lights went out, which was odd, because it was far too early for anyone—let alone both Principal Foster and her sour-faced secretary—to go home. Ann tried the door. Locked. She tapped on the windows, certain someone had to be in there, because there was no other exit, but no one answered.

Something wasn’t right. Someone had to be in that office, listening to her tap on the window, ignoring her. Yesterday, before Finn MacUmhaill had shown her that the world wasn’t as rational or as mundane as she had believed, she would have put it down to petty spite or school politics, the surly secretary showing Ann her displeasure.

Today was not yesterday, the world was not rational, and Ann had knowingly crossed the threshold into the dangerous world of the Fae, had even bargained with one of their number. Stupid, stupid, stupid, because she had let them into her one safe place. The classroom had always been her haven, where she felt safest, where she had learned to control her emotions and her anger, where there were no men to mock her. If she did not feel safe here, she would never feel safe anywhere again.

The lights in the hall went out. Ann whirled around. The corridor was empty, the late afternoon sun slanting through the high windows and throwing shadows on the linoleum.

Breathing hard, she tried to persuade herself that the principal’s office had just closed shop early, that the lights were on timers, that everything was normal, but suddenly she did not want to be alone in the echoing halls of the school.

She would ask Margaret Colby for a ride home. That was sensible.

Margaret’s classroom was locked. So was Mr. Pensey’s. And the nurse’s office. Lights off and doors closed at half past three in the afternoon. The same was true upstairs: the third grade rooms and library were all dark and locked.

That was not normal. It was possible that the administrative offices might close early, but for every teacher to be gone before four . . . No. It had never happened in the two years Ann had worked there. The school was a hive of activity in the late afternoon. There were papers to grade and lessons to plan and concerts and art shows to organize.

At least a few of those darkened rooms had to be occupied.

There was only one conclusion possible: her colleagues had observed her altercation with Nancy McTeer, and they had turned their back on Ann to avoid the displeasure of the Fae.

Ann was on her own.

She didn’t know what to do next. She could call the police, but she wasn’t certain what to tell them. She’d had a confrontation with a parent, but that was par for the course with teachers in this neighborhood. It hadn’t come to blows. Nancy McTeer had threatened her, but not with anything specific.

There was a little boy missing, but she wasn’t his parent, and the child’s mother wasn’t going to cooperate with the police; that much was certain.

The person to call was Finn, but she realized with a start that she didn’t know how to reach him. They hadn’t exactly exchanged phone numbers, but she suspected he knew how to reach her any time he liked. She wondered if such creatures actually owned cell phones. Then she recalled the stainless steel kitchen and the thoroughly renovated house and decided that for the most part Finn MacUmhaill lived very much in the present.

She returned to her classroom and searched for his name online. She came up with nothing. No phone number, at least. She tried Boston’s city tax records and came up blank again. She’d gotten the distinct impression that he owned at least two houses and the bar, not to mention other property in Charlestown, but real estate could be held in trust to keep ownership private, and that went along with the unlisted number. He could keep his utilities under a business or trust name.

If she only knew the names of one of his businesses . . . but, of course, she did. Sully’s. The dive bar where his construction crew had sent her. She searched for the number, found it, and dialed.

“May I speak to Finn?” she asked.

“We’ve got at least three Finns in here at the moment, doll. Which one do you want?”

“Finn MacUmhaill,” she said evenly.

“Never heard of him.” The line went dead.

Great.

From her classroom window, Ann could see the doorway where Nancy McTeer had lurked. It was empty now, and yet Ann still didn’t want to walk home alone.

She called her best friend, Elizabeth, who worked just on the other side of Charlestown at the Constitution Museum.

“I just had a fight with a parent, Lizzy, and there’s no one left here at school and I don’t feel comfortable walking by myself.”

“Oh. That’s not good,” said Lizzy. In the background, Ann could hear children yelling and whooping. She wished she could travel through the phone from the silent halls of the school, where shadows were gathering in the afternoon gloom, to the bright open spaces of Lizzy’s museum.

“Could you maybe pick me up after work?”

There was a pause at the other end. “I would. In a heartbeat. But I’ve got back-to-back groups until six thirty and then there’s a board meeting. I can’t get out of here until at least nine.”

Ann knew she wouldn’t last five hours in the darkened school. It already felt decidedly creepy, and she doubted she would be much safer in the cavernous empty building than out on the street. She promised Lizzy she would call when she got home, shouldered her bag, and headed for the door.

“It’s only a few blocks,” she said to herself. A few largely derelict blocks of shuttered warehouses and suspect garages, admittedly, with no friendly businesses or cheery homes along the way. “Five blocks,” she said. “Four and half, really,” she added, to reassure herself.

By the time she reached the end of the first, the van was already following her. As a teenager, she hadn’t been afraid of anything. She’d had her anger to keep her safe, to defend her against kids who wanted to steal her lunch money or boys who thought that because she was an outcast, she would be an easy target for a quick grope.

She didn’t have that now. All she had was the good sense to start running.

The van sped up. She heard it screech to a halt but she didn’t look back, didn’t want to slow down. She heard a door whine open, then cruel hands were grasping her, yanking her hair and covering her mouth and dragging her back over the broken sidewalk and into the van.