War For The Oaks Part 8

"Why, nothing at all. In fact, this sounds amusing, and even educational."

"Not for you, buster," Eddi said, but she felt a cold spot growing in the pit of her stomach.

"No, really. I've never applied for food stamps-or employment, for that matter. Where do we go?" He tipped his head to one side and gave her one of the innocent, clear-eyed looks that she was beginning to dread.

"I can't find a job with you along," she said slowly.

"I promise to be on my very best behavior."

Eddi clasped her hands firmly under the table. "No matter what behavior you're on, you can't go with me. You don't go job hunting on the buddy system."

"Oh." He wasn't disappointed; he was... speculating. "Tell me, then-what will you do if someone offers you work?"

Eddi identified the cold spot in her stomach. Her jaw clenched as she stared at him, as he stared back.

"As I said to Carla, you must think of us as new lovers, my primrose. I can hardly be parted from you for minutes. I'm afraid separation for all the daylight hours is out of the question."

Eddi felt her anger pus.h.i.+ng the tears up behind her eyes, and she shook her head hard and turned away.

She would hate to let him see her cry, even from frustration. She rubbed her eyes, and winced when her fingers met the bruise that Stuart's blow had left. G.o.d, she thought, I suppose I look like a battered woman.

Carla was scowling at the tabletop, but the phouka was watching Eddi. "What are you thinking?" he asked suddenly.

"Me? Thinking?" Eddi said.

He reached out and grabbed her wrist lightly. "You. Thinking. I would very much prefer that you not cause me trouble over this."

"Let me go. Please." She said it a little louder than necessary, and saw the couple at the next table turn to look. Carla was looking, too, and frowning. Follow my lead, kid, Eddi prayed.

"No," said the phouka softly. "I suspect you'll do something foolish if I do."

Eddi pulled against his grip. "Please, you're hurting me!" He wasn't, but for an instant his fingers loosened. She stepped back, knocking her chair over.

The cafe manager appeared behind the phouka. "Do you need any help?" he asked Eddi, and rested a restraining hand on the phouka's shoulder.

She reached to touch her bruise and hoped it looked like an unconscious gesture. It was easy to draw a shaky breath. "Yes," she said. Then she met the phouka's eyes, and saw them widen. "I won't go back with you," she said loudly, and hoped it would carry. "I won't let you hit me again."

For an instant the phouka sat wide-eyed. Then he rose out of his chair with a snarl. Carla yelled, "Stop him! He'll kill her!"

As Eddi turned and ran for the door, she saw the manager grab the phouka's arms as a broad-shouldered patron stepped in front of him.

She twisted through the crowd lined up at the serving counter, thinking, There's a taxi stand across from the Cedar Theatre. Oh, G.o.d, let there be a taxi there. . . . She would go as far as she could afford to, and worry about a destination later.

The sky over Cedar Avenue was indigo, and the night air was a welcome slap against her skin. She sprinted across Riverside Boulevard, dodging traffic. Far down the street she could see the roof light of a taxi. Past the flower stand, past the bank- From the inset doorway of a shop, a figure stepped into her path. Eddi thought for a fleeting moment that it was a drunk, a panhandler. Then it raised its smiling face-it was short-and she saw the silvery gray skin stretched across the bony features, the snoutlike nose and mouth, the double row of pointed ivory teeth that the curling lips revealed. It had milky-white eyes, like those of blind fish in deep water.

The gray skin-and-bones arms came up. In the filthy, broken-nailed hands was a small double-curve bow of translucent white. The apparition sighted at her down the shaft of an arrow that glittered like gla.s.s and running water.

She heard the absurdly familiar snarl behind her, just before the phouka struck her from behind. She tried to get her hands in front of her before she hit the sidewalk, and found a pair of brown arms there before her, cus.h.i.+oning the fall. Running footsteps rattled away down the sidewalk and disappeared.

"Are you hurt?" said the phouka's voice next to her ear. Would he let her lie on the sidewalk and have hysterics? No, he had an arm around her and was hauling her up. "Come, sweetling, we can't stay here.

They'll be calling out a flock of redcaps next. And your knights-errant back in the cafe are no doubt picking themselves up and summoning the police."

For a moment she couldn't remember what he was talking about. Oh. The Riverside. "Did you hurt them?"

"I tried not. Please don't just hang like a sack, my heart."

Eddi got her feet under her. Then she started to shake. "That thing... they're really trying to G.o.dd.a.m.n kill me!" she gasped.

"Shhh, shhh. They failed. You're all right."

She realized suddenly that he had his arm around her. She stepped quickly away.

Carla was standing a few feet behind him, her eyes enormous. "You!" the phouka said to her, as if it was enough insult. "The next time you a.s.sist in such a lackwit, ill-considered, dangerous little trick I shall knock you into your next life and regret it later, if then."

"What was that?" Carla asked, and her voice broke.

"That, oh my innocents, was the enemy. I'd expected they would find out soon," he murmured, more to himself than to them, "but Oak and Ash, not so soon as this."

"Are they... are they all like that?" Eddi asked.

"No." He looked down at her, and his eyes were sad. "The Unseelie Court wear many shapes, and have many powers. Not so different from the Seelie Court, indeed." Then he seemed to remember his anger, and took her by the shoulders. "Do you see, now, that I must stay near you? I am all that stands between you and the likes of that!"

Eddi pulled away from his hands. "Well, G.o.dd.a.m.n, just how did I get along without you?" she snapped.

Extra adrenaline was making her whole body throb. "The only reason the 'likes of that' are after me is because the likes of you found me first!"

He looked away. "That, unfortunately, is quite true." He bit off the end of each word.

"So let me go."

"I'm sorry." He shook his head. "I cannot."

It was her turn to look away. On the sidewalk, she saw a spark of reflected light. She picked the bright thing up. For long moments, she couldn't tell what she was holding. It was the color of mica-flecked stone, but smooth as metal, heavier than it looked, and burning cold. A little shorter than one of her finger joints, it was an elongated cone, flattened at the narrow end. Then she realized what it must be: an arrow point.

"Elf-shot," said the phouka, his voice colorless. "Had it found its mark, you would have felt a bursting pain in your head, and never a thing more."

There was a buzzing in her palm. With a single sharp, sweet note, the little point shattered in her hand, and all three of them jumped. Nothing was left of it but gray dust.

"Now, sweet," the phouka sighed, "will you come away? Or will you wait until they send another message of good will, and see if I can stop that one, too?"

They went back to the car. On the way, the phouka paused long enough to break a green twig off a locust tree in front of the oriental grocery. "Not as much as I could wish," Eddi heard him mutter, "but it will help." He tucked it jauntily over his ear. "And what," he said to Eddi, "are you staring at?"

"What is that for?"

He looked haughty. "Do you tell me everything?"

She smiled a little and shook her head, and climbed into the pa.s.senger's seat.

As they pulled out onto Cedar, Eddi spotted a police car cruising slowly toward them. "Get down!" she hissed at the phouka.

"What?"

Eddi reached back and pushed his head below the level of the windows. The car went past and pulled up in front of the Riverside.

As she turned onto the freeway, Carla pointed out, "They wouldn't have stopped the car even if they saw him. Domestic violence, y'know."

"Domestic, h.e.l.l," Eddi sighed, slumping down in the seat. "For all I know, half the people in the Riverside are prepared to file an a.s.sault charge."

They rode in silence until Carla reached the Hennepin-Lyndale exit. Then the phouka said, "Do you still want gainful employment?"

"If I don't find some gainful something, I won't be eating in six weeks."

"Hmm. And if I remain in your company, I will suffer a like fate. Something must be done." Eddi could hear the amus.e.m.e.nt in his voice. "You have to make money, and I have to stay by your side. Now, how can both imperatives be satisfied?"

"You can rob liquor stores and take me along as a hostage."

"Interesting. No, I have a better idea." He paused. "Why don't you start a band?"

"Haven't I heard that before?" Carla said.

"Oh, s.h.i.+t," said Eddi.

chapter 5 You Can't Always Get What You Want.

The boulevard trees moved restlessly overhead, strobing the streetlights across the winds.h.i.+eld. The air smelled like ozone. "You want to come up?" Eddi asked Carla as they turned onto Oak Grove.

"That's why I'm looking for a parking s.p.a.ce."

"Two of 'em, for the Queen Mary here."

"Hemph," said Carla cheerfully, and swung into the curb near the creamy-gray front of the Loring Park Office Building.

The phouka sprang onto the sidewalk before Carla turned the engine off, and stood brus.h.i.+ng imaginary dust off his trousers. "I feel I ought to warn you," he said, "that it's going to rain. You'll have a long, wet walk back to your car if you leave it here."

"Yeah, but the scenery makes it all worthwhile." Across the street, where Carla pointed, the undulating bowl of Loring Park was dotted with the orange globes of its post lamps, faceless jack o'lanterns that gleamed on the sidewalks and reflected in the ruffled pond. From somewhere beyond the footbridge, a dove called nervously and fell silent.

"Yes," the phouka said softly, "I can see that it might." Then, as if to break the mood, he pulled the sprig of locust from the black curls behind his ear and presented it to Eddi with a flourish.

At the door to her apartment, the phouka held out his hand for her keys. Eddi drew back and frowned at him. "Why?" she said.

His smile was brilliant and dangerous. "I want to see if you've had uninvited guests. Don't you think I should, before I let you go in?"

She pictured something gray and toothy in her living room, waiting. Carla put a hand on Eddi's shoulder and squeezed comfortingly; then she took the keys out of Eddi's hand and gave them to the phouka.

He squatted and studied the lock before he put the key into it and turned it delicately. Then he stood up and rested his head against the door.

Eddi began, "Is there-"

He touched his finger to her lips and shook his head. Then he opened the door and slipped through it.

"D'you get the feeling he's seen too many Man from U.N.C.L.E. reruns?" Carla whispered.

"You're the one who gave him the keys."

Carla shrugged. "Hey, if he wants to sneak around your apartment, it's no skin off our noses." Then she grinned. "Besides, I can empathize. I always wanted to be Emma Peel."

"Emma Peel? In a station wagon?"

"You can't fit a whole drum kit in a Lotus Elan."

"Poor thing." Eddi smiled. Then she looked at the closed door and s.h.i.+vered. "What's taking him so long?"

"Maybe he found a cat to chase."

Then the door opened and the phouka was there, bowing low. His jacket had reappeared on him, and he was exquisitely out of place in her shabby apartment. "Enter, my little snowdrop. All is in order."

Everything did seem to be all right. The kitschy lamp by the sofa-the one with the copper quarter horse statuette for a base-was on. By its light Eddi could see the magazines neatly stacked on the trunk, and the sofa cus.h.i.+ons smooth. "How about the bedroom?" she asked.

"I checked there, too. You may sleep the sleep of the efficiently protected."

"Yeah," she said, "but did you find anything?"

"If I told you 'yes,' you would be frightened, and if I told you 'no,' you would think you didn't need me.

Silence is my wisest course." He finished with one of his taunting grins, but Eddi thought she'd seen some other expression in his eyes for a moment.

Carla had headed for the stereo. Now the opening ba.s.s riff of the Untouchables'"Free Yourself" kicked out of the speakers. "Easy for them to say," Eddi muttered.

"You want coffee?" she asked Carla.

The phouka turned to Eddi. "You make coffee?" His voice was full of longing. "Oh, I love coffee."

"Oh, G.o.d, just what we need." Carla sighed. "A mad dog with coffee nerves."

Eddi ignored that. "Why didn't you say something this morning? We could have had it at breakfast."

He looked embarra.s.sed. "Yes, well, that was my treat, you see. And I don't know how to make coffee."

"You can make pancakes, and not coffee?"

"Pancakes, my inquisitive flower, are a profoundly primitive and practically universal item, in one form or another."