Swallowing Darkness by Laurell K. Hamilton Read Free Book Online Page A

people, yes,” Doyle said. “Is the woman all right?” the older cop asked, motioning with his head at Gran, still held by Sholto, his extra bits, and his arms, but I was pretty certain that neither officer was looking at Sholto’s human-looking arms. I’d have bet nearly anything that if asked to describe him later, they would have seen only the tentacles. Cops are trained to observe, but some things are just too eye-catching even for people with a badge.
    Rhys came to us, smiling. “She’ll be fine. Just a bit of magic.” He did that “hail-fellow-well-met” smile, and I noticed that he was wasting glamour to hide his ruined eye. He wanted to look harmless in that moment. Scars make some people think you must have done something to earn them.
    “What does that mean?” the older cop asked. He wasn’t going to let it go. He stood with his partner, surrounded by what he would think were nightmares. They’d taken their guns. And you would have to be a fool to not see the physical potential in Doyle and the rest of the men in the room, let alone the extra bits that Sholto was showing. The policeman was no fool, but he also saw Gran as a little old lady, and he wasn’t leaving until he knew that she was all right. I was beginning to see how he’d survived in the job for more than a decade, and maybe why he’d never gotten out of uniform. If I were him, I’d have left the room and called for backup. But then, I was a woman, which makes you more cautious around violence.
    “Grandmother,” I said, and it may have been one of the few times I’d used her full title. She was just Gran. But tonight I wanted the police to know that we were family.
    She looked at me, and there was pain in her eyes. “Oh, Merry, child, do nae call me by a title.”
    “The fact that you don’t approve of my choice in men doesn’t give you the right to use your magic to trash my hospital room, Gran.”
    “It was the spell. You know that.”
    “Do I?” I let my voice hold coldness, because I wasn’t sure. “The spell was designed to simply magnify what you truly feel, Gran. You truly do hate Sholto, and Doyle, and they are the fathers of my children. That will not change.”
    “Are you saying the ol’…woman made the stuff float and hit everyone?” the older cop asked. He sounded doubtful.
    Gran pulled at Sholto’s grip. “I am meself again, Lord of Shadows. Ya can let me go.”
    “Swear. Swear by the Darkness that Eats all Things that you will not try and hurt me, or anyone in this room.”
    “I’ll swear ta no hurt anyone in this room, at this moment, but I will nae promise beyond that, because ya are the murderer of my mother.”
    “Murderer,” the older cop said.
    “He killed her mother, my great-grandmother, about five hundred years ago, or am I off by a century or two?” I asked.
    “You’re off by about two hundred years,” Rhys said. He was in front of the policemen, smiling, pleasant, but he didn’t have a magic that could go with the smile. Someone else in the room did though. “Why don’t you talk to the nice policemen, Galen?” Rhys said.
    Galen looked puzzled, but he moved the small distance to the policemen. If it bothered him to be standing directly under a crowd of nightflyers it didn’t show. Which meant it didn’t bother him, because Galen was almost incapable of lying that well.
    “I’m sorry that you had to see our mess,” he said, and he sounded reasonable, friendly. One of his abilities was to truly be pleasant. Most people wouldn’t think of that as a magical ability, but to be able to charm people wasn’t a small thing. I’d begun to notice that it worked really well on humans. It also worked to a certain degree on the other sidhe and some of the lesser fey. Galen had always had a bit of this kind of charm, a kind of glamour, but since we’d all gotten our powers boosted, his “friendliness” had grown to the level of real magic.
    I watched the policemen’s faces smooth out.