War For The Oaks Part 18

Eddi came to the sleepy realization that she did know a few fairy tales after all, in English ballads. Was there one with a phouka in it?

She didn't realize w.i.l.l.y had stopped until she felt his lips brush hers. "Do you know 'Jack O'Rion?'" she asked him.

"Yeah, but I'm not gonna do it," he replied, a quiver of laughter in his voice. "Too close to home. Do you want to go to sleep?"

Eddi opened her eyes and saw him, naked to the waist, perfect, his eyes full of banked fire. She shook her head.

"I'm glad of that," he murmured with self-mockery that she didn't understand. He set the guitar down gently, and just as gently began to kiss his way down her body.

She did not fall asleep after w.i.l.l.y left, though she tried. It was the fault of too much thinking-about w.i.l.l.y, about Stuart, about the phouka and his fairy war....

From the darkened living room, she heard a clink, like gla.s.s against gla.s.s. She slipped silently out of bed, wrapped her kimono around her, and tiptoed to the open bedroom door.

He had the blinds wide open, and was sitting in one of the kitchen chairs, his feet propped on the windowsill, looking out at the night. She knew him by the silhouette of the loose curls over his forehead, the stubborn chin, the ridiculous froth of lace that spilled over the hand that held one of her winegla.s.ses.

"What, my primrose," he said without turning, "not asleep yet? Or is it awake again?"

"How long have you been here?" She padded into the room and sat in the other chair.

"Long enough. Or perhaps," he said, scowling at the level of liquid in the gla.s.s he held, "not long enough, after all. Pity."

Eddi finally noticed the amber color of the stuff in the gla.s.s, and smelled the brandy fumes. "That's for medicinal purposes."

"I'm not surprised. I have been consuming it steadily for the last hour, and I can a.s.sure you, it was not made for the sake of pleasurable drinking." He spoke more slowly than usual, but just as clearly.

"Then why," Eddi asked carefully, "have you been drinking it?"

"Perhaps because I needed physicking, my heart. Or perhaps not. Tell me, what do you keep it on hand to cure?"

"Head colds."

"Ah, that's the problem, then. I haven't got one."

She sighed. "Who writes your dialogue, Lewis Carroll?"

He frowned over that for a moment, shook his head, and drained the gla.s.s.

"Are you trying to get drunk?" she asked him.

"No. I am succeeding, at least in some measure, in getting drunk."

"I didn't know you could."

"Silly child. That's your problem-you know nothing of history. You are"-he thought about it, and let the word roll graciously off his tongue-"ignorant."

He was trying to annoy her. It made her smile. "Does it help?"

"Does what help?"

"Being drunk."

"Not a bit." He poured the gla.s.s half-full, sniffed it, made a face, and tossed it off. "I took care of the money."

"What money?"

"Listen to her," he grumbled. "I go to almost endless trouble, endure a not inconsiderable quant.i.ty of embarra.s.sment, and all for some obscure moral position, all for her. And she's forgotten it. For your wretched motorcycle, of course."

"Oh!" Eddi leaned forward eagerly. "You mean it won't change back? It'll stay money? Oh, thank you!"

He sank his face into his hand. "I believe I warned you about saying that."

"s.h.i.+t. I'm sorry. But I... that makes me very happy."

He looked up at her, and smiled slowly. "Now that I can listen to with no discomfort at all." He held up the brandy bottle. "Would you like some?"

"G.o.d, no. I hate the stuff."

"So do I," he said wisely, pouring himself another gla.s.s.

Eddi folded her arms on the table and rested her chin on them. "Then why are you drinking it?"

The phouka pursed his lips, and studied the streetlights through his brandy. "There is a children's rhyme, I believe, that tells one how many days there are in each month."

She frowned at him.

"Recite it for me, please."

"What?"

"I did say please."

Eddi sighed and began, "Thirty days hath September, April, June-"

"Thirty days hath April," he repeated, letting the words roll slowly out. "If you check the clock and calendar, you'll find, I think, that we are an hour into April's thirtieth and last day. And what does that make this coming night?"

Eddie felt as if, had the fate of the civilized world rested on it, she could not have opened her mouth, or moved, or blinked.

The phouka shook his head sorrowfully and took another swallow of brandy. "You are a slow pupil, dear heart. Well, I'll give you this one, if I must, but only this one. The night to come is May Eve, my primrose. And we shall know the joy of battle." He turned his face away from the window, turned it toward her, and nothing in it matched the lightness of his voice.

After a long time, she cleared her throat and said, "So you're getting drunk."

"Don't be silly. There's no connection at all."

"You said there was."

"I said no such thing. You misunderstood."

Eddi sighed, and stood up. "Well, now I know I won't be able to sleep." She started back toward the bedroom.

The discordant chime of breaking gla.s.s stopped her. She turned to find the phouka staring down at the glittering fragments of the winegla.s.s between his feet. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice unnaturally casual.

"It's all right," she replied, and continued on to the bedroom.

She didn't think he'd meant her to hear him, when he whispered, "Would that it were."

chapter 9 Would I Lie to You?

Eddi swung the bike into the parking lot of the building on Was.h.i.+ngton Avenue. The early afternoon sun warmed her shoulders through her jacket. She wished it would rain; she was in no mood for cheerful weather. The phouka slid off the seat, and frowned when she didn't.

She pulled off her helmet and rested it on the gas tank. "I don't know if I can face practicing right now,"

she said at last.

"What a pity. Why couldn't you have decided that on the other side of town and spared me a ride on that infernal contraption?"

"The infernal contraption was your idea."

"It's given me a headache," he grumbled.

"Your headache came out of a bottle of Mr. Boston Five-Star. It has nothing to do with motorcycles."

The phouka looked sullen.

Eddi gazed wearily up at the iron stairs to the third floor practice s.p.a.ce. She had slept a little, but only enough to make her feel worse. She felt, in fact, as if every cell in her body was poisonous to every other cell. It was no condition to be in for the band's first practice.

And she didn't want to face Carla. Carla might read her expression and remember what day it was.

Carla would want to protect her, to become embroiled in the whole bizarre business. Eddi wasn't going to let that happen.

Unless Carla pried it out of her. Which she could do.

"Of course you want to practice," the phouka said sourly. "This may be your last chance."

Eddi felt her insides scramble. "I thought you said you'd protect me."

"No one," he glowered at her, "is perfect." He pressed his lips together for an instant, then grinned.

"Except, of course, myself."

Eddi watched his face as she said, "Then I will be safe tonight?"

"Well," he said slowly, "not entirely."

She realized that she should put the kickstand down now, before her strength drained away completely and she let the bike fall on her. Killed? She put the stand down, and sat staring at the bland face of the speedometer.

Tonight? She couldn't quite believe in dying-though if she didn't, why did her arms and legs seem suddenly to be made of gelatin, and her mouth seem full of glue?

The phouka must have seen her distress. "Oak and Ash. Don't mind me, dear heart. It's the hangover speaking."

"But it's true, isn't it?"

He sighed. "We could all be killed. That is, unfortunately, one of the points of tonight's exercise. But anyone with designs on your life will be trying to go through me, and that only after going through a host of folk who fight like cornered badgers."

"It sounds like I'm going to be more trouble than I'm worth."

"You, my primrose, are all that raises this beyond the level of an ordinary territorial squabble. You and the sheer scale of the thing, that is."

"There's a difference between a territorial squabble and a war?" Eddi asked, hoping for an intelligible answer.

The phouka rubbed his temples. "A true war is one in which the blood of immortals is shed. Anything less has all the significance of a hard-fought game of football, to the Folk."

"It sounds just like humanity to me," Eddi broke in impatiently. "We'll even bleed for football, sometimes."

"As I have said, no sense of history. There's magic in spilled blood, my child. Your ancestors knew this, and on occasion even put it to the intended use." The phouka was beginning to warm to his lecturing.

"And in immortal blood, which is rather more difficult to spill, there is enormous power. In a war of the Folk, the drawing of blood, the taking of lives, forces the partic.i.p.ants to abide by the outcome of the fight.

Without that, we can fight on for years over the same issue, the same piece of ground-like mortals.

But immortal blood tends to stay in immortal veins, and stern measures are needed to have it otherwise."

He talked about spilling blood so calmly, as if it was something that happened elsewhere to others. And maybe it was, for him. He was immortal. There was nothing abstract about the subject for Eddi. She could feel panic bubbling up inside her like yeast.

"And one of the most effective measures," the phouka continued, "is to have a mortal on the battlefield, one with certain qualities, who is bound to the fight."

"Bound?"

The phouka closed his eyes and covered his face with one hand. "May the earth open and swallow me,"

he muttered. "Immediately."

Eddi stared at him, alarmed. "What aren't you telling me?"

He glared. "As far as I can tell, precious little, whether I will or no!"

"Just what's involved in being 'bound to the fight'?"

"Bread and blood," he snapped, "and much good may the knowledge do you."

Eddi slid off the bike and jammed the key in her pocket. "Well, it would do me good. If you'd just tell me what's going on, I might be more cooperative, dammit."