A hand clamped around my upper arm, holding me in place before I could bolt. My heart began hammering in my throat.
“Where do you think you’re going?” a deep male voice whispered in my ear.
3
Before I could even think about yanking myself out of his grasp, I found my arm twisted behind my back, and he forced me to step through the high grass.
Towards the back door.
Who knew the Ghosthand Killer had such a smooth, smoky voice? It didn’t match the images I had in my head that went along with the blurry crime scene photos, the gray-skinned corpses with a hand burned into their chest before they crumbled into dust… on the other hand, maybe it made perfect sense.
He lured them in with his lovely deep voice, then sucked their souls out.
There was no way I was going out like that.
The porch was only a few feet away, the door cracked open like it was beckoning me to my doom.
I mustered up the last of my energy and smashed myself backwards, tossing my head to hit him in the face and hopefully break his nose.
But his face was too high. He had a foot of height on me. The back of my skull smacked into a hard chest and bounced off, so I resorted to my back-up tactic: lifting my heel hard enough to smash into his balls.
I felt my foot slam into a thigh as I simultaneously jerked forward, and his grip on my arm slackened for one second. As soon as I felt his fingers loosen, I was off like a shot, racing past the porch.
Something snared my ankle and ripped my foot backwards. I sprawled on my face in the high grass, yanking up handfuls as I tried to get away. The smell of earth filled my nose as whatever had snared me pulled me back, dragging me easily over the grass.
“What are you doing?” he asked in exasperation. A shadow crouched over me, and this time he twisted both arms behind my back before he lifted me to my feet and steered me back towards the porch. The thing snaring my ankle had released me.
“I’m trying not to die!” I snarled, trying to jerk away, but the Ghosthand learned quickly. He held me slightly to the side so I couldn’t kick him and pushed me through the door.
I stumbled into a dark hallway and heard the death knell of the door being shut and locked behind me. Would he kill me here and dump my corpse, or was I going to be bound, gagged, and driven to one of the neighborhoods he tended to frequent?
“Die? You’re not going to die. What gives you that impression?” He sounded nonplussed as he prodded me down the hall.
I stepped into a room that looked like an office. An enormous ebony desk was set facing the room and one wall was plastered with notes and photographs. Bookshelves lined the wall behind the desk, and a fire was crackling in the hearth. A man’s jacket was draped over the back of the plush leather office chair.
A feminine gasp filled the room, followed by a sultry woman’s voice. “Oh, Robin, she’s perfect.”
I looked around wildly but saw no one else. Not until something on the desk moved.
The remains of a half-eaten dinner were laid out over an open book, but amid the stacks of files there was a miniature table and chair.
A tiny pixie sat in the chair, her legs crossed primly, goggling at me behind little spectacles made of wire as fine as spiderwebs. She held a doll’s teacup halfway to her mouth.
“That’s not why she’s here,” the Ghosthand- or Robin- said tersely. He released his grip on me and pushed me forward into the middle of the room.
I was trembling, but something seemed off. The pixie placed her teacup on her tiny table and stood up, smoothing down a skirt sewn from glossy green leaves.
“Why else would she be here?” She had a loud, stern voice for someone of her size, and looked me over like she was sizing me up. “She’s the right height, the right face, the right shape… much cuter than you, Robin. She’ll go further.”
“She saw Arrian’s remains.” There was a touch of a growl to Robin’s voice. “One of those damn cŵn annwn dug some pieces up again. I need you to brew that forgetfulness potion right now, Sisse.”
I pulled my eyes away from the assessing pixie. The photographs on the walls weren’t just any photos; they were mugshots, pictures taken from high on roofs and outside windows. Photos spying on people.
Turning slowly in place, I looked up at the man who’d captured me.
He was Gentry Fae. My breath caught in my throat; nobody had even considered that the Ghosthand might be Gentry. The idea was unthinkable.
And he was as handsome as his voice suggested. His hair and beard were thick and neat, the exact color of a raven’s wing, and eyes like sapphires gazed back at me suspiciously. His face was carved of harder lines than the usual angular planes of the Gentry Fae.
He wore black from head to toe, with his shirt sleeves rolled up to expose muscular forearms, but there was a small gold badge still pinned to his chest.
“Sisse. Potion. Now.” He cleared his throat, flicking a foul look at the pixie before turning his gaze back to me. He looked like he could eat me alive.
I heard her loud and clear behind me. “I’m not brewing shit, Robin. This is what we call a windfall.”
While Sisse was talking, I’d started trembling harder. Everyone in Avilion knew that badge and the crest on it, the upraised hand backed by a stylized sun and the wings of a swan.
This man was the Left Hand of the Queen.
The Garda answered to him. Unlike the Queen’s Right Hand, her guardian knight, the Left Hand made her problems disappear without a trace.
If he wanted to make me disappear, no one would even remember the name Briallen Appletree by next Tuesday.
Robin’s lips flattened as he looked me over, and Sisse flew across the room to land lightly on one of his broad shoulders. She left a glittering stream of pixie dust in her wake.
“Be reasonable, Robin. Since you refuse to attempt it, you need one of their kind.”
He waved an impatient hand. Sisse abruptly stopped talking, but she looked smug, like she’d won a debate, her spectacles glinting in my direction. I wrapped my arms around myself tighter.
I was not in a fine place to bargain for my life. All I had to my name right now was a bike, a cracked Dandelion+ that was three years out of date, and a pair of fake pixie wings.
But Robin’s expression had gone from annoyance to consideration, which didn’t bode well. Even if he wasn’t actually the Ghosthand Killer. Actually, I wasn’t entirely sure I wouldn’t take the Ghosthand over the Queen’s Left Hand.
Sisse fluttered off his shoulder when he stepped forward, and I almost backed into the desk.
Robin cocked his head and grabbed my chin, gently but firmly, forcing my face up towards his.
Being so close to that sapphire stare was more than a little unnerving. He looked at me like he could pull all my secrets right out of my head, his gaze drifting from my messy bun to the freckles on my nose, and finally down to my mouth.
We were in such a strangely intimate pose that for a crazy moment I wondered if he was going to kiss me, but he just touched my lips with his thumb. His skin was warm against mine.
“Your lips are stained purple. You ate my faerie fruit.” It wasn’t a question. The evidence was right there on my face.
I nodded jerkily.
“How many?” he demanded, his voice soft but commanding.