Half an hour later we were standing on a dais with three microphones standing in the middle of it. Madeline had rallied and gone back to her normal pleasure in being able to boss around some of the most powerful beings left on the planet. Of course, if Madeline Phelps were intimidated by the powerful, or even the scary, she'd never have survived seven years working for Queen Andais. Doyle and Barinthus had finally reminded her that we were on a tight schedule, and allowed her to exchange Galen's much-loved leather jacket for a tailored suit jacket. I'd known Kitto's Day-Glo coat would have to go, but I hadn't realized that jeans and a polo shirt were not acceptable. The problem in Los Angeles was that Kitto was too broad-shouldered for most boys' fashions, but not tall enough for most men's, so his shopping choices were limited. Apparently the queen had thought of that, and to complement the black slacks that we had been able to find, she supplied a jewel-tone long-sleeved silk shirt, but the black jacket she had sent did not fit. It was too broad through the shoulders and long in the arm. Madeline had finally admitted that the jacket looked worse than the shirt by itself. The other men, she had to admit, grudgingly, looked fine. Actually, there wasn't a man among them who ever just looked fine. Fabulous, handsome, amazing, but not fine.
I, on the other hand, needed a shorter skirt. She supplied one that was a fringe of black pleats that barely covered my upper thighs. My penchant for wearing thigh-high hose under any skirt meant that when I moved, the lacy tops flashed. If I wasn't careful how I walked on the raised dais, I'd flash a hell of a lot more than the tops of my hose. I was glad that I'd worn nice black underwear, with no peekaboo lace or holes. If I flashed, at least all they'd see would be solid black satin. Of course with a different skirt, I needed different shoes. Madeline had brought a pair of four-inch spike patent-leather heels. I'm good at it, walking in heels, but I made her promise that I could change before I went out into the snow. Spike heels are not made for snow, unless you want to break an ankle.
I stood on the dais against the wall with Frost on one side and Doyle on the other. The rest of my guards ranged on either side. It was a little like standing in line before a firing squad - though the police stood in a semicircle at the base of the dais, to make sure that it didn't become a real firing squad. Truthfully, unless the queen was keeping big secrets from us, I think the police were there mainly to keep the reporters from rushing the stage. Or maybe that was just my level of discomfort with this many media in one room. It was a near-claustrophobic sensation, as if they were breathing too much of my air.
I'd been doing events like this since I could remember, but ever since my father's death, and the press coverage of his assassination, I'd not been as comfortable with the media. During the most painful event of my life, they had kept asking me, How do you feel, Princess Meredith? My father, whom I adored, had been slaughtered by unknown assassins. How the hell did they think I felt? But the queen didn't allow me to say that to anyone. Not the truth. No, Queen Andais, with her own brother dead, had made me face the media and be royal. I don't think I'd ever hated the fact that I was a princess more than during that year. If you're royal, you aren't allowed to mourn in private. Your pain is paraded across the evening news, the tabloids, the daily papers. Everywhere I looked I saw my father's picture. Everywhere I looked I saw his dead body. In Europe they'd published pictures that the American papers wouldn't touch, and it had been bloody. My father's tall, strong body, reduced to a red ruin. His hair spilled out across the grass like a black cloak, the rest of him nearly unrecognizable.
I must have made some sound, because Doyle touched my arm. He leaned in and whispered, "Are you well?"
I nodded, licked my freshly lipsticked mouth, and nodded again. "Just remembering the first press conference I ever saw this full."
He did something in public that he had never done as the Queen's Darkness: He hugged me, albeit one-armed, so he still had some chance of getting to his weapons. I leaned in against his leather jacket and the solid warmth of him underneath. I ignored the burst of flashbulbs, tried not to think that the image was being captured in every medium known to man, or woman. I needed the hug, so I took it, and tried to let go of my gloom. We were here to discuss my search for a husband, a prince, a future king. It was a happy occasion, and the queen would want us smiling.
Madeline took the first question while I was still leaning against Doyle. It was for me, of course.
Doyle gave me a last squeeze, and I sashayed, smiling, on my four-inch spike heels. The question was one I'd had before; most of them would be. "Princess Meredith, have you chosen a husband?"
"No," I said.
The next reporter stood up to ask his question. "Then why this visit home? What have you come to announce?"
The queen had told me how much truth I could tell. "My uncle, the King of Light and Illusion, is throwing a ball in my honor."
"Will you be taking your guards?"
That was a tricky question. If I just said yes, then they could print that I didn't feel safe in the Seelie Court without bodyguards. Which was actually the truth, but we couldn't let them know that. "My guards go everywhere with me - " I hesitated, and Madeline came in close enough to whisper, "Steve," to me. I finished, " - Steve. It is a dance, after all, and I wouldn't leave my best partners home twiddling their thumbs, would I?" Smile, smile, and move on.
A woman asked, "Queen Andais announced that there will be a dance tonight in your honor at her court. When will you be going to the Seelie Court?"
"It's planned for two nights hence," I'd added planned for in case something awful happened and we decided it was too dangerous to go. The hence was because the media liked it if we put in an archaic word now and then, or even just a word that they thought was archaic. I was a faerie princess, and some people were disappointed that I talked like a Midwestern native. So occasionally, I tried to sound the way people wanted us to sound. Most of the men still held at least an edge of their original accent. It was just me who sounded like the American girl next door. Well, me and Galen.
"Are the courts going to reconcile?"
"To my knowledge the courts aren't feuding, unless you know something I don't, Maury." I actually remembered his name on my own. Smile, cock my head to one side, give them a glimpse of how young I can still look when I need to. It was my version of Bambi eyes: See how harmless and cute I am, don't hurt me.
I got laughter for the cute act, and more flashbulbs, until I was nearly dazzled blind by them. I answered the next question with spots dancing through my vision. I'd have worn sunglasses if my aunt hadn't sent word that I couldn't. Sunglasses weren't friendly. We wanted to look friendly. She'd allowed the guards who had brought sunglasses to wear them. Nearly a first. It meant that she was worried, more worried than the last time I'd been home. And still none of us knew why.
I had to admit with most of them in dark glasses, they did look like backup singers. Merry and her Merry men. That's what the media had coined for us. Not quite the name of a rock group, but I'd heard worse.
"Which of your guards is the best in bed?" This from a female reporter.
I shook my head enough to make my hair swing, and the emerald earrings catch the light. "Oh, now - " Madeline whispered the woman's name in my ear. " - Stephanie, a lady doesn't kiss and tell."
"But you're not a lady," a man's voice piped up from the back of the room. I knew the voice. He'd spoken loud enough that the room had gone quiet, so that his next shout was very clear: "Just another faerie slut. Royal blood doesn't change that."
I leaned into the microphone and made my voice low and rich. "You're just jealous, Barry."
A portion of the policemen in the circle were already working their way toward the back of the room. Barry Jenkins was always on the do-not-let-him-in list. I had a restraining order against him dating back to my father's death. He'd gotten better, or worse, photos than anyone of my father's body, and me weeping over him. The courts had agreed that what he'd done subsequently had infringed on the rights of a minor - me. They'd ruled that he could not profit by the exploitation of a minor child. That meant that all his photos that he hadn't used yet were useless. He couldn't sell them. He had to give the money he'd already received for photos and articles to charity. He'd gone from maybe winning a Pulitzer to nothing. For that and an incident on a lonely country road, where I took my own revenge, he'd never forgiven me.
He'd had his own revenge, in a way. When my once-upon-a-time fiance, Griffin, had sold intimate pictures to the tabloids, it had been with Jenkins's byline. I wasn't a minor anymore, and Griffin had gone to him, so he hadn't even had to come within fifty feet of me to write the story.
My aunt, the Queen of Air and Darkness, had declared a death sentence on Griffin. Not for hurting me, but for betraying our intimate secrets to the humans. That was not allowed. To my knowledge they were still hunting for him. I think if she could have sent Doyle after him, he'd have been dead by now, but her Darkness had better things to do than revenge. Keeping me alive, and getting me pregnant, were more important to her than Griffin's punishment. Hell's bells, they were more important to me.
I didn't want Griffin dead. His death wouldn't change what he'd done. It wouldn't change that he'd been my fiance for seven years, and that he'd betrayed me with anything he could sleep with. We'd been broken up for more than three years before he betrayed me in the press. Griffin seemed to believe that he was so good that I'd take him back. His delusions weren't my problem. So he'd gone back to the queen's guards, and because I refused him, she'd declared him celibate again. If he didn't sleep with me, he slept with no one. Part of me had enjoyed the irony of it. Part of me had enjoyed the revenge. The next day the tabloids had carried the pictures, and his interview with Jenkins.
The policemen stationed at the doors closed off Jenkins's escape so he could only stand there and wait for the other policemen to come get him. "What's the matter, Meredith, afraid of the truth?"
"The restraining order says that you must stay at least fifty feet away from me, Jenkins. This room isn't that big."
He was unpleasant enough that Major Walters sent another three men to help control the situation. I think it was more to keep the cameras back, and see that Jenkins's struggles didn't break any expensive equipment, than any thought that Jenkins was a danger to me or anyone else.
The remaining police tried to cover the front of the podium, but there weren't enough of them. If the press rushed us now, we were finished, but of course they were more interested in the scene with Jenkins. It'd make some headlines tomorrow. So far the disruption was the most interesting thing to happen, and they'd lead with Jenkins and the old feud, unless we gave them something juicy.
Doyle and Frost both moved forward to flank me. Doyle actually touched my arm to lead me back against the wall, closer to them all. I shook my head, and finally whispered, "I don't want my father's death to make front-page news again. I can't live through it twice."
He looked puzzled even behind the dark glasses.
"They'll dredge it all up, Doyle. They'll dredge it all up to explain Jenkins."
Frost touched his shoulder. "She may be right."
Doyle shook his head. "Your safety comes before anything else."
"There are different kinds of safety," Frost said. There was no trace of the petulant child I'd come to dread. Frost was acting like a grownup, and I was so happy to see it that I hugged him around the waist. It felt incredibly good to hold him that close. I hadn't realized until that moment how anxious I was.
"What do you want us to do?" Doyle said, and his voice was gentler.
Magic prickled across my skin. The three of us looked up, and all the other sidhe were searching the room. It was a spell, but from where, and for what?
One of the policemen in front of the dais stumbled, as if he'd tripped over nothing. I saw the man turn toward us, saw the wide surprise in his eyes.
Frost turned, giving his back to the man, and beginning to move me away. I'd see the pictures later, but when it was actually happening I saw nothing but Frost's shirt, felt nothing but him picking me up, starting to run. A gunshot exploded behind us, and another so close behind that it was almost one shot. Frost threw himself on the floor. I felt his body pushing us down, but could see nothing but the white of his shirt, the flare of his grey jacket. I could smell the shots like a burning in the air.
There was no sound. The roar of the guns so close in such a small place with such good acoustics had robbed me of my hearing, temporarily, I hoped. I saw feet I thought were Galen's before I felt the heavier weight as he threw himself on top of Frost, and formed a living shield around me. More weight, but I couldn't see who, not even to guess.
The first thing that let me know I wasn't deaf was the thick beat of Frost's heart against my ear. After that my hearing came back in stages, like a broken video, bits of shouting. So much shouting. Screams.
I only know what happened because of the video later, and the pictures. The video that we would see over and over again on every newscast. The officer with his gun pointed at Frost's back, trying to kill me, as if he couldn't see that Doyle had a gun pointed at his chest from less than two feet away. The police officers on either side with their guns out, looking around, not understanding that one of their own was the problem. One had his gun pointed at Doyle. The bespelled officer fired, as another officer finally understood that something had gone terribly wrong and smashed into the first one's shoulder. But Doyle had fired before the first bullet had gone wide and pierced the wall behind us. The police officers rode the bespelled cop to the ground, where he was already wounded by Doyle's shot. There would be pictures of Rhys and Nicca behind Doyle with guns in one hand and swords in the other, and Barinthus and the others forming a wall around us.
While it was happening, I was crushed under the white and grey of Frost's body while my hearing returned - and what I heard mostly was screams. Something warm dropped onto my forehead, something liquid and heavier than sweat. I couldn't move my head enough to look up, but another drop joined the first to trickle down my skin, and I caught that whiff of metallic sweetness that was blood.
I tried to push him off me, tried to ask how badly he was hurt, but it was like trying to move a mountain. I managed to say, "Frost, Frost, you're hurt."
If he heard me, he ignored me. Everyone ignored me. It was as if I were strangely nonessential to the events. The man had tried to kill me, but now it was the police and the bodyguards who were on stage, not me.
I heard Major Walters bellow, "Get her out of here." The cry was taken up, like a battle cry. "Get her out of here, get her out of here," so many voices yelling, so many male voices yelling it.
The weight above me lifted, and I saw the lights of the room again. More voices, "My God, she's hurt!" The cry was taken up again, "She's hurt, she's hurt, the princess is hurt." There would be a picture of me later with blood running down my face, but it wasn't my blood. I think I was the only one who knew that at first.
Kitto was still kneeling close to me, and I knew that he had been one of the bodies in my living shield. Barinthus held down his hand to me. "Merry-girl." He hadn't called me that in years. I took his hand while Galen tried to look at Frost's shoulder and the bigger man shrugged him off. It never occurred to me that Barinthus hadn't touched the ring in the other room.
His hand met the ring as he pulled me up, and he froze in midmotion, a look of startlement on his face. The guards who were new looked around for another threat, because they felt the magic. My guards felt it, but they knew it wasn't another attempt on my life. I heard Frost say, "Consort save us," and Rhys say, "Shit." Then the room was gone, swallowed in a blink of magic. The water was warm as a bath, warm as blood. Barinthus was beside me, helping me tread water. The nearly invisible webbing between his fingers had flared to life, one strong arm stroking the water, while the other held me against his body. We were both nude, and it had been the warmth of the water that had kept me from noticing. Which meant the water was the exact temperature of my body. I could feel his legs moving, keeping us afloat, keeping us in the middle of a vastness of water that was as blue as his hair, as green as his hair, as grey as his hair. His hair streamed down his shoulders into the water, and where it touched, it was as if each strand became a current, like a melting of color that swam away from us, until I couldn't tell what was hair and what was water, and still his body was solid against mine. Part of his body grew more solid as our bodies bumped against one another in the warm, warm water.
"Merry," he said, "what have you done?"
I opened my mouth but it wasn't my words that came out: "I bring you back your ocean, Manannan Mac Lir, come take it from me."
He touched my mouth with his hands, and for a moment only his strong legs kept us afloat. "Do not say that name, for I am not he. I have not been that for long years." He looked stricken, as if hearing the name had hurt him somehow.
I realized in a distant way that I wasn't entirely alone in my body, nor entirely in control of it. The thought should have frightened me, but it didn't. The power was so so soothing, so safe. It was like being wrapped in peace.
"Come, drink of me, and hold me to your lips." My body entwined around his, wrapping us together in the warm water. It was as if I'd known that he would try to push me away, but there was no way to break free now. My small, rounded arms were like gentle chains, my legs around his waist solid as the mountain's root. Strangely, I knew that he could not free himself of me. He could deny me, but he could not cast me aside. My body's weight forced him to glide onto his back, his head only barely above the quiet waves.
His eyes flashed white. "You are not Merry."
"I am Merry," and I knew it was true.
"But not Merry alone." His arms and legs fanned the water, pressing parts of him against me in a way that we had never been.
"No, not Merry, alone."
"Danu," he said, and his voice was the rushing whisper of waves on some distant shore.
I slid my hands behind his neck and raised my body along his, until my mouth hovered over his, and the tip of him caressed against the opening of my body. The feel of him touching the edge of me brought me back into myself, chased her soothing presence back, just enough. I said, "Barinthus."
"Merry, do you agree to this? The Goddess and God mean well, but I have seen them use people, and I no longer believe that the end justifies the means."
I raised back enough to gaze down at him. He floated underneath me, his hair flowing out in a halo of blue, green, grey, navy, turquoise, and his face caught like a flower in the center of all that color, all that movement. Everything around us was water, moving, flowing, slapping in tiny waves. His body was the only solid thing in all that moving vastness. But I did not cling to him, I rode him, and he held me, but there was no fear. I felt in him the same sense of peace that I held within myself. They say the ocean is a treacherous place, but sitting there staring into his blue eyes as the sea rocked us, feeling the press of him against my body, long and solid, where only the flexing of his hips or mine would close that last distance, I saw nothing but gentleness in his eyes. He would pass this by, all this, give it up, yet again, if I but said no.
I put my face next to his so that a hard breath would have made us kiss, and said, "Drink of my lips." My lips touched his, and the next words were mouth against his own mouth, as if I ate the words and gave them back to him. "Let me feel the strength of you inside me."
He drew back just enough to speak. "It will not be all it could be, for you are mortal, and might drown." With that warning, his mouth came up to meet mine, and as our lips touched, he thrust into my body. Power poured out of my mouth and spilled into his as his body pushed into mine, and it was as if the magic flowed both from me and into me. We became a circle of mouth and body, of magic given and received, of life and small death, of his strength holding us above the waves, of my softness bearing us down. It was almost as if one magic were trying to keep us afloat, and the other sought to drown us. In the midst of life, death; in the midst of joy, danger; in the midst of ocean, land. The earth itself called to me, leagues and leagues below us. The land rolled underneath its blanket of ocean, and I felt it. I felt the earth turning under us, spiraling around, and it was as if the earth felt my thoughts, and stirred in her bed,
I felt the wave of power coming up from underneath us, like some huge, dark creature, swimming up fast and faster, sleek and dark and deadly. It hit us in a wave of power that threw the sea into towering waves, and boiled the land underneath us so that steam filled the air. The water was no longer warm but hot, hot enough that I cried out and jerked my mouth free of his. I saw his face, felt his hands on my hips, felt his body thrusting up into mine, and it wasn't just the hard length of him. It was as if the miles and miles of ocean underneath me were rushing between my legs, spilling into me, through me, over me, and we were pushed into the air on a column of water that glistened like crystal, and glittered with bits of burning rock, like melting fire. I understood now why he'd asked my permission, because I wasn't a goddess, I was only Merry, and I could not hold all that he offered. I screamed, half in pleasure, as he brought me, and half in fear, because I could feel no end to it.
Over the sound of the ocean boiling underneath us, I heard him say, "Enough!"
I was on the floor on the dais with Barinthus half collapsed on top of me. We blinked up into each other's faces, and I watched my own confusion chase across his eyes. I knew where I was, and I knew what had happened, but the change was - abrupt.
I saw my Doyle and the others who were mine standing around us, facing inward, hands spread, touching one to the other so they formed a circle around us. I could see the power in that circle that they had thrown up so desperately to contain what had happened. The guards who had come with Barinthus were staring in at us, and the police were screaming, "Get her out of here!" Seconds had passed, no more.
Barinthus got to his knees and reached for the hand that did not hold the ring, to help me sit up.
That seemed to be signal enough, because they all lowered their hands in unison. The circle went down, and water surged outward, a miniature flood that soaked the dais, and the chairs nearest us, and all the policemen. Frost's pale grey slacks were soaked to charcoal; Rhys's white silk trench coat, ruined. Only two people stood in the center of that spray of water and stayed dry - Barinthus and me.
Major Walters came up brushing water out of his eyes. "What the fuck was that?"
Doyle started to say something, but Walters waved it away. "Fuck it, get her out of here before something else goes wrong." When they all looked at each other instead of moving, Walters leaned into Doyle and said in a voice that would have done any drill sergeant proud, "Move!"
We moved.