Iron Kissed (Mercy Thompson #3)(60)
Author: Patricia Briggs

As soon as the doubt touched my mind, I could feel it. The sweet liquid burned with magic and the goblet throbbed under my hand – so hot that I was surprised my hand wasn’t smoking.

I set the old thing down on the table and wished the stupid book had included a picture of Orfino’s Bane – the goblet that the fairy had used to rob Roland’s knights of their ability to resist her will. I’d bet it would match the rustic goblet beside my plate.

"It was you," I whispered.

"Yes, of course," he said. "Tell me about your friend. Why do the police think he killed O’Donnell?"

"They found him there," I told him. "Zee could have run, but he and Uncle Mike were trying to gather all the fae artifacts so the police wouldn’t find them."

"I thought I got all the artifacts," said Tim. "The bastard must have been taking more things than the ones I sent him for. Probably thought that he might get more money for them somewhere else. The ring isn’t as good as the goblet."

"The ring?"

He showed me the worn silver ring I’d noticed last night.

"And it makes the tongue of the wearer sweeter than honey. It’s a politician’s ring – or will be," he said. "But the goblet works better. If I’d made him drink before he went out, he wouldn’t have been able to take more. I told him if we took too much, the fae would start looking outside Fairyland for their murderer. He should have listened to me. I suppose your friend is a fae and was going to talk to O’Donnell about the murders."

"Yes." I had to answer him, but I could hold back information if I tried. "You hired O’Donnell to get magic artifacts and kill the fae?"

He laughed. "Killing the fae was his thing, Mercy. I just gave him the means to do it."

"How?"

"I went over to his house to talk to him about the next Bright Future meeting, and he had this ring and a pair of bracers sitting on his bookcase. He offered to sell them to me for fifty bucks." Tim sneered. "Dumb putz. He had no idea what he had, but I did. I put on the ring and persuaded him to tell me what he’d done. That’s when he told me about the real treasure – though he didn’t know what he had."

"The list," I said.

He licked his finger and pointed at me. "Score a point for the bright girl. Yes, the list. With names. O’Donnell knew where they lived and I knew what they were and what they had. He was scared of the fae, you know. Hated them. So I loaned him back the bracers and a couple of other things and told him how to use them. He fetched artifacts for me – for which I paid him – and he got to kill the fae. It was easier than I’d thought it would be. You’d think a dumbshit like O’Donnell would have a little more trouble with a thousand-year-old Guardian of the Hunt, wouldn’t you? The fae have gotten complacent."

"Why did you kill him?" I asked.

"I thought the Hunter would take care of it, actually. O’Donnell was a weakness. He wanted to keep the ring – and threatened to blackmail me for it. I told him ‘sure’ and had him steal a couple more things. Once I had enough that I could do my own stealing without much danger, I sent O’Donnell after the Hunter. When that didn’t work…well." He shrugged.

I looked at the silver ring. "A politician can’t afford to hang out with stupid men who know too much."

"Take another drink, Mercy."

The goblet was full again though it had only been half-full when I’d set it down. I drank. It was harder to think, almost like being drunk.

Tim couldn’t afford to let me live.

"Are you a fae?"

"Oh, no." I shook my head.

"That’s right," he said. "You’re Native American, aren’t you? You won’t find any Native American fae."

"No." I wouldn’t look for fae among the Indians; the fae with their glamour were a European people. Indians had their own magical folk. But Tim hadn’t asked, so I didn’t need to tell him. I didn’t think it was going to save me, him thinking I was a defenseless human instead of a defenseless walker. But I was going to try to keep any advantages that I could.

He picked up his fork and played with it. "So how did you end up with the walking stick? I looked all over for it and couldn’t find the darn thing. Where was it?"

"In O’Donnell’s living room," I told him. "Uncle Mike and Zee overlooked it, too." It must have been the extra drink, but I couldn’t stop before I said, "Some of the old things have a will of their own."

"How did you get into O’Donnell’s living room? Do you have friends on the police force? I thought you were just a mechanic."

I considered what he’d asked me and answered with the absolute truth. The way a fae would have. I held up a finger for the first question. "I walked in." Two fingers. "Yes, as a matter of fact, I do have a friend on the police force." Three fingers. "I’m a damn good mechanic – though not as good as Zee."

"I thought Zee was a fae; how can he be a mechanic?"

"He’s iron kissed." If he wanted information, maybe I could stall him and babble. "I like that term better than gremlin because he can’t be a gremlin if they just made up that word in the last century, can he? He’s a lot older than that. In fact, I finally found a story – "

"Stop," he said.

I did.

He frowned at me. "Drink. Take two drinks."

Damn. When I set the goblet down, my hands tingled with fae magic and my lips were numb.

"Where is the walking stick?" he asked.

I sighed. That stupid stick followed me around even when it wasn’t in the room. "Wherever it wants to be."

"What?"

"Probably in my office," I told him. It liked to show up where I was going to come upon it unexpectedly. But the need to answer him made me continue to feed him information. "Though it was in my car. It’s not now. Uncle Mike didn’t take it."

"Mercy," he said. "What is the thing you least wanted me to know when you came here?"

I thought about that. I’d been so worried about hurting his feelings yesterday, and standing on his doorstep I’d been a little worried still. I leaned forward and said in a low voice, "I am not attracted to you at all. I don’t find you sexy or handsome. You look like an upscale geek without the intelligence to make it work for you."

He surged to his feet and his face whitened, then flushed with anger.

But he’d asked and so I continued, "Your house is bland and has no personality at all. Maybe you should try some naked statues – "

"Stop it! Stop it!"

I sat back and watched him. He was still a boy who thought he was smarter than he really was. His anger didn’t scare me, or intimidate me. He saw that and it made him angrier.