He looked at me the way my mother sometimes did. But he wasn’t my parent, and he had invaded my house, so I didn’t cringe. I narrowed my gaze on him and finished the point I’d been making, “If I were a sheep farmer, I would have found it to be powerful magic.”
“It is an artifact my father made,” said Beauclaire who was also ap Lugh, Lugh’s son. “I value the walking stick, do not mistake me. But it is not powerful; nor is its magic anything that would interest most mortals or fae. For that reason, it was left with you longer than it should have been.”
“Point of fact,” I said, holding up a finger. “It was left with me because whenever I gave it back, or one of the fae tried to claim it, it returned to me.”
Beauclaire leaned forward, and said, “So how is it that you do not have the walking stick now?”
“Is it the Gray Lord or ap Lugh who wants to know?” I asked.
He sat back. “It matters?”
I didn’t say anything.
“The Gray Lord is too busy with other matters to chase after a walking stick that encourages sheep to produce twins. No matter how old or cherished that artifact is,” said Beauclaire after a moment. He gave me a small smile that did not warm his eyes. “Even so, had I known where it was before this, I would have been here sooner to collect it.”
Which was an answer, wasn’t it?
“The Gray Lord would have gotten the short answer,” I told him. “Much good as it would have done him.”
That mobile eyebrow arched up with Nimoy-like quickness.
“Or me,” I continued. “Because the Gray Lord is not going to be happy in any case.” The son of Lugh might understand why I had done what I had done because he would understand that the need to fix what I had broken was more important than that the walking stick was a lot more powerful than it had been. The Gray Lord would only be interested in the power.
He didn’t say anything, and I drew in a breath.
“The walking stick killed one of the otterkin,” I told him. “But saying I killed the otterkin with it would be stretching the truth. I did use it to defend myself when the otterkin swung a sword at me. His magical bronze sword broke against the walking stick, minor artifact that it is.” He almost smiled at the bite in my tone, but lost all expression when I continued. “And then the silver butt of the walking stick sharpened itself into a blade, a spearhead, and killed the otterkin.” In case he didn’t understand, I said, “On its own. Without its intervention, I would not have survived.”
The long fingers on Beauclaire’s left hand drew imaginary things on the tabletop as he thought. I worried that it might be magic of some kind, but he’d promised no harm, and I could have sensed magic if he were using it.
Finally, he spoke. “My father’s artifacts acquire some semblance of self-awareness as they age. But not to alter, so fundamentally, their purpose. The walking stick was a thing of life, not death.”
“Maybe the walking stick is the first, or even the only one. I am not lying to you.” My voice was tight. Maybe I shouldn’t be telling him all of this. But he scared me, this Gray Lord who wore a lawyer’s suit and seemed so cool and calm. I was under no illusions about the civility promised by the oh-so-expensive suit—the fae were masters at donning the trappings of civilization to hide the predator inside. I needed him to understand why I’d given the walking stick away, or there was a very real chance he’d kill me.
“Maybe not,” he conceded after too long a pause. “But there are many kinds of lies.”
“Before the otterkin died, we fought the river devil, a primordial creature that came to destroy the world. Most of the work was done by others. It was a hard fight, and we almost lost. Those who fought to kill it, all of them, except for me, died.” For some creatures, death was less permanent than for others, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t died. “I had lost my last weapon. I was desperate, everyone was dead or dying. The walking stick came to my hand, and I killed the river devil with it.”
Beauclaire didn’t say anything, but his attention was so focused it felt electric on my skin. “You think it was quenched in the blood of this ‘river devil.’” He sneered on the last two words.
“‘River devil’ was the name given to it by other people, so don’t blame me for it,” I told him. “But yes. Because after the river devil died, the walking stick changed. It killed the otterkin and … it was aware.”
Beauclaire just watched me, and his eyes reminded me of Medea’s when she crouched outside a mousehole. Waiting.
“I’d broken it,” I admitted frankly. “And I didn’t know what to do about it.”
“You gave it to Siebold Adelbertsmiter,” Beauclaire said, his voice cool, his body ready to rend, and his eyes hungry.
“It wouldn’t let him take it when it first came to me,” I told him. “It wouldn’t have gone with him, so I didn’t even try.”
“Uncle Mike?” That would have bothered him less.
“No. Not Uncle Mike, either. I told you it wouldn’t go with him. What do you know about Native American guesting laws?”
He looked at me for a moment. “Why don’t you explain them to me?”
So I explained how I’d given Lugh’s walking stick to Coyote.
Lugh’s son looked at me in patent disbelief. “You gave it to Coyote? Because he was your guest, and he admired it.”
“That’s right,” I agreed.
He shook his head and muttered something in a language that sounded like Welsh, but wasn’t, because I speak a few words of Welsh. There are more British Isles languages than just Welsh, Irish, Scots, and English—Manx, Cornish, and a host of extinct variants. I have no idea what language Beauclaire spoke.
When he was finished, he looked at me, and asked, “Can you retrieve it?”
“I can try.” I smiled grimly. “I have a better chance of retrieving it from him than you do.”
He stood up. “I swore that I would not go from here empty-handed, and it is not in me to go back on my oath. So I will take from here your word that you will retrieve the walking stick and return it to me within one week’s time.”
“As much as I’d love to agree,” I told him, “I cannot. Coyote is beyond my ability to control. I will look for him and ask when I find him. That I will swear to.”
“One week’s time.” He met my eyes, and what I saw in his gaze made me cold to the bone as I remembered that he’d spoken of tidal waves and drowned cities. “If not, we will have another talk with a less cordial ending.”
He walked out of the kitchen the same way he’d come in; I took the shorter path, near the stairs, and watched as he left. The front door shut behind him with a gentle click.
A car started up. I couldn’t pick out the engine, though it had a low, throaty purr that sounded like something expensive. Nothing I’d worked on very much. He didn’t rev it up, just drove it like a family sedan out of the driveway and down the road.
The sound of Beauclaire’s engine was blending into the distant sounds of the night when I felt a tickling sensation, like someone had pulled mosquito netting off my skin. There was a half-second pause, then Adam, naked and enraged, was at the bottom of the stairs beside me. He looked at me. It was only a momentary look, but the intensity of it told me he saw that I was unharmed and not particularly alarmed. Then he was out the front door.
By the time I retrieved the gun from under the kitchen towels and checked the safety, Adam was back.
“Fae,” he said, sounding calmer than he looked. “No one I’ve smelled before. Who was it, and what did they want with you?”
“Gray Lord,” I told him because he needed to know that it had taken a Power to enspell him and successfully invade our home. “It was Beauclaire—you know, the guy who initiated the fae’s retreat to the reservations. He came looking for the walking stick. Have you seen Medea? He scared the holy spit out of her.”
Adam frowned. “I thought Zee knew about the walking stick. And nothing scares that cat.”
“Apparently she’s good with coyotes, vampires, witches, werewolves, and all the fae who’ve come around before, but Gray Lords are an entirely different proposition.” I started up the stairs. I had to get up in a couple of hours and go to work. Tomorrow, Christy was going to be here. It looked to be a long day, and I wanted to face it with at least the better part of a full night’s sleep. And first I needed to find the cat and make sure she was okay.
“Mercy,” Adam said patiently as he followed me. “Why didn’t Beauclaire know that you’d given the stick to Coyote?”
“As best I can put together,” I told him, “Zee didn’t pass it around widely, and Beauclaire and he are not speaking because Zee killed Beauclaire’s father Lugh in order to quench Excalibur.”
Adam’s footfalls had been steady behind me, but at that last they paused. He started up again, and said, “Dealing with the fae is always full of surprises.”
His hand came to rest on my back, then slid lower as he took advantage of being two steps below me and nipped at my hip. “So,” he said gruffly, “what did Lugh’s son say when you told him that you gave his walking stick to Coyote?”
“That I have a week to get it back.”
Adam’s hand curved around my hip and pulled me to a stop at the top of the stairs.
“Or?” His voice was a growl that slid over my skin and warmed me from the outside in.
“We have another talk,” I told him, doing my best to make it sound a lot less threatening than Beauclaire had. I didn’t want my husband out hunting Gray Lords because someone had threatened his family. “It won’t come to that. I’ll find out how to contact Coyote. I’ll call Hank in the morning.” Hank was another walker like me, though his second form was a hawk. He lived an hour and a half from the Tri-Cities and was my information source for most of what I knew about being a walker. “If he doesn’t know, he should be able to hook me up with Gordon Seeker. Gordon will know.” Gordon Seeker was Thunderbird, the way Coyote was Coyote. He liked to travel around in the guise of an old Indian with a thing for the gaudiest version of cowboy wear I’d ever seen.