“Wait. Who are they?” I halfway expected King Oberon and Queen Titania to be waiting on the other side of the door.
Claire didn’t respond. She righted the chair she’d knocked over, then crossed over to the door. She undid the deadbolt and opened it, but my view was blocked until she swung it wide and stepped aside.
“Hello again, pretty lady,” the man who called himself Ryder greeted me, stepping over the threshold. I recognized him immediately—he was the leader of the trio of “train people” who had accosted me outside the bar. Ryder’s companions, Birdy and Joe, followed him, Birdy making quick furtive glances around the room as if she halfway expected an ambush. Joe sauntered in behind her and flashed me a big toothy smile before taking a seat at a table near the door. Claire closed the door behind him and reset the deadbolt.
“You’ve met?” Claire asked.
“Yeah, we’ve had the pleasure,” Ryder responded.
“Wait,” I said, focusing on Claire. “You know these people?”
Claire looked at me. “Don’t be afraid, Mercy. Ryder’s here to help us.”
“Help us what?”
“He knows about Emmet. Ryder has experience with the supernatural. I was researching the gentry, trying to figure out why Emmet had come nosing around. Most of what I read was nonsense, but when I found Ryder’s website—”
“Wait. You found him online?”
Claire winced at the sound of my outrage. “He’s offered to help. He’s come all the way from Louisiana.” When these points failed to move me, she leaned in toward me, her tone conspiratorial. “He’s dealt with the daoine sidhe before.”
“What do you mean dealt?”
“Dealt,” he said tapping the top of the knife he wore strapped to his leg. “And with other supernatural creepy-crawlies too. Skin-walkers,” he continued, “demons, blood drinkers . . . witches.” I flinched, and he laughed.
“But you aren’t a witch yourself. You must borrow the power.” As Jilo had taught me, some non-witches were extremely talented at channeling energy, so I didn’t doubt his story. I forced myself to shake off my fear of the man and looked at him through the lens of my own magic. An aura of scattered and violent energy surrounded him, flecks of red emitting from a black hole. I sensed the darkness inside him recognizing my own power and tugging at it, trying to swallow it.
Ryder held up his forearm, and the tattoo that covered him from wrist to shoulder began to glow, a pulse of energy racing along its lines. Its design began to change, becoming animated before my very eyes. He held his arm up, proudly displaying it. “You got some juice in you, girl,” he said with a leer. “I’d sure love to squeeze it out.”
“What are you?” I asked, unable to tear my eyes away from the morphing design. As I watched, the ink transformed itself into an expertly rendered etching of my own face.
He lowered his arm, and I flicked my eyes from his tattoo to his face. The smile I saw there sickened me. “I’m just an ordinary guy. A man who has accepted a mission and been given the power to carry it out. I see a problem, and I do my best to deal with it. One of your kind, one of you witches, appreciated my efforts enough to give me this here tattoo. It not only gives me a bit of my own magic, but it makes me pretty much immune to most other magic. That’s why you couldn’t just shoo me away the other day. I could’ve had you then, but it wasn’t the right time. She’s a beauty, ain’t she?” He laughed, rolling his forearm around to compare the ink rendition of my face to the real deal. “Started out as a band around my wrist, but it’s growing nice.” The tattoo flashed and returned to its original pattern.
“Those symbols in your tattoo, they help you steal others’ power. There’s a price for that, you know? You’ll burn for it. I’ve seen it happen.”
“Oh, I will burn all right, girly, but not today.”
“I think I’ve made a mistake inviting you here.” Claire began crossing cautiously toward me. I figured that she had probably just made the biggest understatement of her life. “I think you all should leave.”
“Now, y’all ain’t gonna make the same mistake twice, are you?” Ryder asked, and in a blink Joe had crossed the room and was cradling Claire in his arms, the serrated blade of a hunting knife similar to Ryder’s pressed against her throat. “Maybe you’d like to try this again?” the ringleader asked, looking at me. “How about that drink you refused me the other day?”
“Don’t hurt her,” I pleaded. I went behind the bar and found three glasses, filling them with sour mash. Could I do something to take out Joe without hurting Claire? I could feel my magic rise in waves around me, my panic pushing it to limits I doubted I could control with any kind of precision. I had to find a way to reach them without harming Claire. As I carefully set the glasses on a tray, the flimsiest of tactics formed in my mind.
“No. You stay where you are,” Ryder commanded, and then, “Fetch, Birdy.” She jumped at his words, eager to please. She was so grateful to count Ryder as her man that she didn’t seem to mind being ordered around like a dog. Our eyes met as she collected the tray. Hers hardened at the sight of the pity in mine.
“Emmet isn’t what you think he is,” I said, hoping I might think of a way to convince them he wasn’t worth their trouble.
“He isn’t human.” Ryder said. “And he’s just burstin’ with magic.” He took a drink from the tray. “So what is he?” I remained silent and stared at him, my mind rushing over plausible tales. For about the millionth time, I cursed my inability to out-and-out lie. “You want her to keep her tongue, you better start wagging yours.”
Joe pried Claire’s mouth open and shifted the blade. Her eyes had grown as wide as silver dollars with panic. “He’s a golem. A golem. Let her go.”
“Well I will be good and damned,” Ryder said, tossing back his whiskey. “They still makin’ them things?”
“He’s more than that, though. He’s alive for real. I don’t understand it myself, but he’s alive.”
“Hear that, Joe? A patch of dirt has turned itself into a living, breathing man.” Joe nodded at him. Birdy dropped the tray on a table and stood by the younger man’s side as he took a swig of his whiskey. She downed her own in one gulp and threw the glass at the bar, where it shattered into a thousand pieces. Claire jumped at the sound, and the blade sliced a shallow nick into her neck.
“Easy there,” Ryder said to her. “You’re my collateral in this here transaction.” He turned back to me. “It ain’t natural, a golem with a mind of its own,” he said, addressing me. “A golem needs a master. Your boy is probably aching for someone to take control of him, help rid him of that pesky free will, that conscience.”
“So you want to turn him back into a puppet.”
“No.” He laughed and in a single movement slid his knife from its sheath and sliced through the air. “I want to skin him, that’s what I want. Real magic, witch magic, has been bound up in his body. I’ll turn his pelt into objects of power, talismans,” he said, as if repeating a recently learned word. “Turn his bones into relics, cook his marrow into unguents.” He mispronounced the word, but I still got his meaning. “Ain’t a wannabe witch in the world who wouldn’t give me their firstborn for a piece of your golem’s magic. Including that old darky you been hanging with.”