it pinned him, broke his hip, and caught on fire. I picked it up and threw it off him, then dragged him back to the house. More than a mile. I was twelve. My hair had turned this color by the next morning."
"Troll," I said quietly.
She nodded. "Yeah. I dont know the details about what happened, but yeah. And every time I let those feelings get loose, the more I lost my temper and used my strength, the bigger and stronger I got. And the worse I felt about what I did." She shook her head. "Sometimes I think it would be easier to just choose the Sidhe half. To stop being human, stop hurting. If it wasnt for the others needing me "
"It would turn you into a monster."
"But a happy monster." She finished her beer. "I should go check on Fixhes sleeping nowand try to call Ace. What are you going to do?"
"Try to add up some facts. Meet some contacts. Interview more Queens. Maybe get a haircut."
Her teeth showed again in a smile, and she rose. "Good luck." She went back into the noisy apartment and shut the door.
I closed my eyes and tried to think. Whoever had sent the Tigress, Grum, the chlorofiend, and the lone gunman after me had been trying to kill me. It was a reasonable assumption, then, that I was on the right track. Generally speaking, the bad guys dont try to bump off an investigator unless theyre worried hes actually about to find something.
But if that was true, then why had the Tigress taken a shot at me the day before Id gotten the case? She could have been working for the Red Court and taken a new contract that just happened to be me, but it didnt sound likely. If the ghoul had been on the same contract, it meant that Id been judged a threat to the killers plans from day one, if not sooner.
The frost on my cars windows had probably been the doing of someone from Winter. I mean, a wizard could do the same thing, but as devastating spells go, that one seemed to be kinda limited. The ghoul, presumably, would work for anyone who paid. The chlorofiend, though I hadnt expected it to talk, or to be intelligent.
The more I thought about the plant monster, the more things didnt add up. It had picked a spot and had its allies herd me to it. That wasnt the behavior of your average thug, even of the magical variety. It had a sense of personal conflict about it, as if the chlorofiend had a particular bone to pick with me.
And how the hell had Murphy killed it? It was stronger than your average bulldozer, for crying out loud. It had socked me once when I had my full shield going, and it still hurt. It had clipped me a couple of times and nearly broken bones.
The chlorofiend should have flattened Murphy into a puddle of slurry. It had hit her at least a dozen times, yet it seemed like it had only tapped her, as though unable to risk doing more damage. Then a lightbulb flashed on somewhere in my musty brain. The chlorofiend hadnt been a being, as such. It had been a constructa magical vessel for an outside awareness. An awareness both intelligent and commanding, but one who could not, for some reason, kill Murphy when she attacked it. Why?
"Because, Harry, you idiot, Murphy isnt attached to either of the Faerie Courts," I told myself. Out loud.
"Whats that got to do with it?" I asked myself. Again out loud. And people think Im crazy.
"Remember. The Queens cant kill anyone who isnt attached to the Courts through birthright or bargain. She couldnt kill Murphy. Neither could the construct she was guiding."
"Damn," I muttered. "Youre right."
A Queen seemed reasonable, thenprobably from Winter. Or, more realistically, the frosted windshield could have been a decoy. Either way, I couldnt figure who would have had a reason to come after me with something as elaborate as a mind fog and a veritable army of assassins.
Which reminded me. The mind fog had to have come from somewhere. I wasnt sure if the Queens could have managed something like that outside of Faerie. If they couldnt, it meant that the killer had a hired gun, someone who could pull off a delicate and dangerous spell like that.
I started running down that line of thought, but only a moment later the wind picked