Iron Kissed (Mercy Thompson #3)(9)

I froze where I stood, somehow convinced that if I moved so much as a step from where I was, I'd never find my way back. The peaceful spell of the ocean was entirely dispelled, and the landscape, still beautiful, held shadows and menace.

Slowly I sat down, shivering in the breeze. All I could do was hope that Zee found me, or that this landscape would fade away as quickly as it had come. To that end I lowered myself until my belly was on the sand with the ocean to my back.

I put my chin on my paws, closed my eyes, and thought bathroom and how it ought to smell of mouse, trying to ignore the salt-sea and the wind that ruffled my fur. But it didn't go away.

"Well, now," said a male voice, "what have we here? I've never heard of a coyote blundering Underhill."

I opened my eyes and spun around, crouching in preparation to run or attack as seemed appropriate. About ten feet away, between me and the ocean, a man watched me. At least he looked mostly like a man. His voice had sounded so normal, sort of Harvard professorial, that it took me a moment to realize just how far from normal this man was.

His eyes were greener than the Lincoln green that Uncle Mike had his waitstaff wear, so green that not even the growing gloom of night dimmed their color. Long pale hair, damp with saltwater and tangled with bits of sea plants, reached the back of his knees. He was stark naked, and comfortable with it.

I could see no weapons. There was no aggression in his posture or voice, but my instincts were screaming. I lowered my head, keeping eye contact, and managed not to growl.

Staying in coyote form seemed the safest thing. He might think me simply a coyote...who had wandered into the bathroom of a dead fae and from there to wherever here was. Not likely, I had to admit. Maybe there were other paths to get here. I'd seen no hint of another living thing, but maybe he'd believe I was exactly what I looked like.

We stared at each other for a long time, neither of us moving. His skin was several shades paler than his hair. I could see the bluish cast of veins just below his skin.

His nostrils fluttered as he drew in my scent, but I knew I smelled like a coyote.

Why hadn't Zee used him? Obviously this fae used his nose, and he didn't seem powerless to me.

Maybe it was because they thought he might be the murderer.

I shuffled through folklore as he watched me, trying to think of all the human-seeming fae who dwelt in or about the sea. There were a lot of them, but only a few I knew much about.

Selkies were the only ones I could remember that were even neutral. I didn't think he was a selkie - mostly because I couldn't be that lucky - and he didn't smell like something that would turn into a mammal. He smelled cold and fishlike. There were kinder things in lakes and lochs, but the sea spawns mostly horror stories, not gentle brownies who keep houses clean.

"You smell like a coyote," he said finally. "You look like a coyote. But no coyote ever wandered Underhill to the Sea King's Realm. What are you?"

"Gnadiger Herr," said Zee cautiously from somewhere just behind me. "This one is working for us and got lost."

Sometimes I loved that old man as much as I loved anyone, but I'd never been so happy to hear his voice.

The sea fae didn't move except to raise his eyes until I was pretty sure he was looking Zee in the face. I didn't want to look away, but I took a step back until my hip hit Zee's leg to reassure myself that he wasn't just a figment of my imagination.

"She is not fae," said the fae.

"Neither is she human." There was something in Zee's voice that was awfully close to deference, and I knew I'd been right to be afraid.

The stranger abruptly strode forward and dropped to one knee in front of me. He grabbed my muzzle without so much as a by-your-leave and ran his free hand over my eyes and ears. His icy hands weren't ungentle, but even so, without Zee's nudge I might have objected. He dropped my head abruptly and stood again.

"She wears no elf-salve, nor does she stink of the drugs that occasionally drop a lost one here to wander and die. Last I knew, rare though it is, your magic was not such as could do this. So how did she get here?"

As he spoke, I realized that it wasn't Harvard I heard in his voice, but Merrie Old England.

"I don't know, mein Herr. I suspect that she doesn't know either. You of all people know that the Underhill is fickle and lonely. If my friend broke the glamour that hides the entrances, it would never keep her out."

The sea creature grew very still - and the waves of the ocean subsided like a cat gathering itself to pounce. The wisps of clouds in the sky darkened.

"And how," he said very quietly, "would she break our glamour?"

"I brought her to help us discover a murderer because she has a very good nose," Zee said. "If glamour has a weakness, it is scent. Once she broke that part of the illusion, the rest followed. She is not powerful or a threat."

The ocean struck without warning. A giant wave slapped me, robbing me of my footing and my sight. In one bare instant it stole the heat of my body so I don't think I could have breathed even if my nose wasn't buried in water.

A strong hand grabbed my tail and yanked hard. It hurt, but I didn't protest because the water was retreating, and without that grip, it would have carried me out with it. As soon as the water had subsided to my knees, Zee released his hold.

Like me, he was drenched, though he wasn't shivering. I coughed to get out the saltwater I'd swallowed, shook my fur off, then looked around, but the sea fae was gone.