A Stroke Of Midnight   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

Sheblinked, and looked around her as if she didn’t quite know where she was. “What the hell was that?”

“Welcome to faerie, Dr. Polaski,” Rhys said, and handed her back her glasses.

Frost handed me a bottle. “Doyle gave me his, for he does not need it.”

I took the offered bottle, and wondered where Doyle had gone, and what he had found. “I would feel better if Doyle or the others would contact us.”

“As would I,” Frost said as he began to lay oil on Walters.

I turned to the only other woman in the group. She wasn’t that much taller than myself, which was one of the reasons I chose her. When I took off the cloth cap, it revealed straight brown hair tied back in a ponytail, a little worse for the sock cap she’d been wearing. Her eyes were a solid medium brown. The face was a delicate triangle, pretty enough, but I’d been too much around the sidhe of late. She looked unfinished to me, as if her hair or eyes needed a different color to make her real.

I told her, “Close your eyes.”

She didn’t hear me, but it wasn’t the walls she was staring at. She was watching Frost while he touched Major Walters’s face. I finally touched her eyes just above her open lid, and she flinched away from me.

“Dr. Polaski, can you help her hold still?” I asked. She was one of the CSU, not the police. Polaski came to us, and said, “Carmichael, this will help. Close your eyes and let the princess touch you.”

Carmichael seemed strangely reluctant, but she did what her boss said to do. She shivered under my fingers like a nervous horse, skin jumping. She got calmer by the time I’d done her hands, and she seemed calm as I touched the tops of her hiking boots, below the wet of her jeans. When I raised up to trace her forehead, her voice seemed normal. “I’d prefer a cross as the symbol,” she said.

“A cross won’t work,” I said, tracing something much older on her forehead.

Those brown eyes opened to look at me, while I did it. “What do you mean, a cross won’t work?”

“We aren’t evil, Carmichael, just other. Contrary to popular myth, holy symbols won’t stop our magic, any more than holding up a cross would stop a blizzard from harming you.”

“Oh,” she said, and looked a little embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“It’s all right, the church has tried to vilify us for centuries, but if you’re ever in need of protection from faerie, I’d advise turning your jacket inside out instead of a prayer.