Swallowing Darkness - Laurell K. Hamilton [82]
“Major Walters, I am sorry that I upset your Mobile Reserve and anyone else, but I’ve had a hell of a night myself, okay?” There was the tiniest catch in my voice. I took a few deep, even breaths. I would not break down. Queens didn’t do that.
Doyle kissed the top of my head, laying his cheek between the roses and the mistletoe of the crown.
The rose tendril wrapped tightly around the phone, and tugged.
“Are you hurt?”
“Not physically.”
“What happened, Princess?” His voice was gentler now.
“It’s time for me to get out of faerie, Major Walters. It’s time for me to get out of your jurisdiction. I’m too close to my relatives in St. Louis.” The tendril pulled harder, as if it were trying to pull the phone out of my hand. Faerie had crowned me the queen of this mound. It didn’t want to lose me to the human world.
I whispered, “Stop it.”
“What was that, Princess?”
“Nothing, sorry.”
“What do you need from us?”
Doyle touched the tendril and began to uncurl it from the phone. He tried to take both of his hands away to do it, but I put one arm back around my waist, so he was forced to do it one-handed.
I explained that my uncle’s people were outside my refuge and were threatening war on the sluagh unless they handed me over. “My uncle is absolute ruler of the Seelie Court. He’s convinced them that the twins I carry are somehow his, and he’s their king. He claims that the sluagh stole me away, and the Seelies want me back.” I didn’t try to fight the catch in my voice now. “They want to give me back to my uncle. Do you understand?”
Doyle finally had the tendril unwrapped. I felt it move back up with the rest of the living crown.
“I heard what he’s accused of, and I am sorrier than I know how to say, Princess Meredith.”
“Accused of, Walters? Nice that you don’t admit that you believe me.”
Doyle held me more tightly.
Major Walters started to protest.
I cut him off. “It’s okay, Walters. Just escort me back to reality. Get us all on a plane and back to L.A.”
The tendril slid back toward the phone.
“You should have a doctor look at you before you get on a plane.”
I put a hand over the receiver and hissed, “Stop!” The vine stopped in mid-motion like a child caught with its hand going for cookies.
“Princess, we’ll come and get you, but on the condition that you let a doctor look you over before we put you on the plane.”
“We melted the walls of the room I was in. Do you really think the hospital wants me back?”
“They’re a hospital, and they want you safe. We all want you safe.”
“You don’t want me dying on your watch is what you mean.”
Doyle sighed, and kissed my cheek. I wasn’t sure if he was warning me not to be too harsh with the humans, or if he was simply comforting me.
“Princess, that is not what I mean,” he said and he sounded like he meant it.
“Fine, I’m sorry. Please, come get us.”
“It will take a little while to get things round, but we’ll get there.”
“Why a while?” I asked.
“After what happened last time, Princess, we’ve been given permission, or orders, depending on how you want to look at it, to have the National Guard with us. Just in case the sky boils and monsters come out again. I know your man Abeloec healed the ones who went mad, but enough of them remember some of what happened that this is more than a straight police matter.”
“Mobile Reserve can’t handle it?” I asked.
“The National Guard has witches and wizards assigned to their units now. The police don’t.”
“Oh,” I said. “I’d forgotten that. That horrible thing that happened in Persia.” It had been on the news for days, in horrible living color.
“It’s not called Persia anymore, Princess Meredith, and hasn’t been for a very long time.”
“But the creatures that attacked our soldiers were Persian bogey beasts. They had nothing to do with Islam, and everything to do with the original religion of the region.”
“That may be, but the National Guard will bring magic workers, and after what’s been happening, I think I agree that we need them.”
What was I supposed to say to that? The tendril curled