company policy. She could find any document in seconds flat, stall an inspector or find a hard hat, “lose” an asshole’s paycheck, or nag a worker into Doing the Right Thing. Now her pudgy middle-aged body, thick legs indecently splayed under her usual tartan skirt, slumped in the final indignity of death over her thronelike metal desk.
Jeremiah twisted the lance, ripping it free. Two, there’s at least one more. Get your weapon free. Move. Move!
Another Unseelie hit him from the side, the wicked edge of a flint knife kissing his jacket and scraping the tough material with a ripping sound as Gallow twisted, right boot stamping down and driving him away from the strike. The blade was probably poisoned, and if it touched skin he’d be in trouble.
The butt of the lance flicked out, catching the second noseless bastard right in the middle of his elongated face. Watery greenish ichor sprayed, and the smell of freshly cut grass filled the trailer, fighting with the stink for supremacy. Jeremiah snapped his own curse, and the second Unseelie went flying. The sidhe smashed into the flimsy bathroom wall and kept going, fetching up against the toilet with a sickening crack. The mirror shivered into pieces.
Bad luck, but for who? The lance flicked again, catching the first Unseelie in the throat as he sprawled, snarling, one maggot-white hand clapped to his side. The shock of a life ending grated up the haft, and the lance made a hungry keening that trembled the flimsy windows in their sockets, vibrating along every edge and settling in Jeremiah’s back teeth. Sick heat boiled up his arms, following the channels of the marks, and his jacket smoked with sudden heat.
The Unwinter sidhe were in dusty black suits, their eyes holes of darkness. If there was half-and-half left in the dish near the coffeepot—and Sylvia made certain it never ran out, yet another reason to admire her—it would be soured by now. Nausea twisted like a fish under Jeremiah’s breastbone. The door had swung shut, and he didn’t have time to reach behind him to lock it.
The second Unseelie rose from the ruins of the bathroom wall, broken drywall settling over him in a pall of fine white dust. “Gallow,” he whispered, and the sound turned air to ice, Jeremiah’s breath pluming in the sudden chill. Paper stirred, rustling, and the lance shrank. Close-quarter fighting was not good with a reach weapon; it was too confined in here.
Still, any blade would have to do when faced with a scion of Unwinter.
Each sidhe wore belts with heavy twisted silver-gleaming buckles. Rings flashed on the live one’s fingers, a pale golden gleam. Barrow-wights, then, fullblood but not highborn. Dangerous, and deadly—but not very bright.
Jeremiah inhaled smoothly, disregarding the smell. His boots shuffled in paper as he moved forward, lance ready, its tip glowing a dull hot red. Steam writhed along its edge, and it shifted again, wicked sharklike teeth growing from its edges.
He had forgotten how good it felt to kill.
“Wight.” He spat the word like a curse. The dead sidhe on the floor twitched, runnels of dust eating ageless flesh. In the old times, he would take the rings as bloodgilt. They would jingle on his belt when he walked, and he would trade them for bright bits of moonmetal to tie in his hair. Or he would gift them to her, since there was little she liked better from an Armormaster than shinies from an Unseelie’s fingers. Or ears.
Or throat.
The barrow-wight hissed, exhaling. They were sneakthieves and assassins, not direct fighters. Were there more? Had to be; nobody would send a trio of mere wights to deal with him.
The stupid wight leapt forward, strangler’s hands outstretched and a collection of black-flapping curses taking shape in the air around it. The lance jerked, and the swipe ended with its teeth tearing in sidhe flesh, the green scent pungent-foul as fresh-cut grass rotted in marshy swampwater. Curses fell, flapping and wriggling, and intuition bloomed under his skin. There had to be more. Nobody would send only a troika of wights to—
The world halted, then turned over. A huge noise, almost soundless in its immensity, and Jeremiah flew. The explosion rammed him through the trailer’s wall, the lance screaming as its feeding was interrupted, but the flush of power up its haft and through the marks was enough to shield him from the worst of the blast. Landed hard, rolling, his jacket smoking afresh and the lance retreating into insubstantiality as