Read Online Silver Skin (A Cold Iron Novel) by D.L. McDermott - Free Book Online Page B

already slowing. He sucked in a breath, and his lungs burned.
    Iron filings. Iron dust. Sifting up through the air. More than possible to be formed from disuse and decay. Someone had scattered pounds of the stuff on the stairs.
    Enough to kill most Fae. Not cleanly, either, but slowly, agonizingly, blighting and poisoning every cell in the body. He held his breath and kept going. Up another step, and another. He reached the landing, turned, could not go on without taking another deadly breath. The iron dust seared his lungs, his chest convulsed. He forced himself up the next flight, to the door to the roof, and then out.
    More iron filings dusted the ground in a circle radiating out from the door. He staggered through it, to the cleaner ground beyond, then crumpled to his knees on the gravel. The pain was nearly blinding, but he could see Helene at the other end of the roof.
    Her back was to Miach. She was walking, purposefully, toward the parapet. He called out to her, his voice a hollow rasp, no power left in it. “Helene, turn around, come back .”
    It would have been an irresistible command, if he wasn’t dying, if all of his power wasn’t locked in his body trying to hold back the inevitable.
    She didn’t even pause. It was as though she couldn’t hear him at all. Because she was obeying a deeper summons from the Fae who had ensorcelled her. Who had commanded her to climb the stairs to the roof, to walk to the edge, and who, in a moment, would tell her to jump.
    He must stop her, physically, and he would never make it to her in time. He could barely stand, and she was already climbing onto the rampart over the asphalt parking lot. Six stories up. And he was on his knees, trying desperately to summon his magic. If the building had been hewn stone or wood he could have borrowed its strength, but the steel and glass gave him nothing.
    Miach watched, helpless, as Helene Whitney prepared to jump to her death.

Chapter 5

    T here was only one way to save her, and he did it. It was crude, it was invasive, but it might work.
    Miach struck at her mind with the little strength he had, focusing his power, overloading and co-opting her motor skills, and turning her back, like a marionette dangling from his strings, the way she had come. The connection, the intimacy of the spell, was almost indescribable. Not quite the intimacy he’d planned for them. . . .
    He dared not touch any higher functions, had no idea what kind of compulsion she was under. And because he did not know if he could do it again so soon after contact with so much iron, he sent her into a deep and dreamless sleep, using the last of his failing strength to cross the roof and catch her as she fell.
    She was a tumble of tangled blond hair and long tanned limbs, her skirt riding high up above her knees. He lifted one eyelid. Her pupils were normal.
    Helene was no longer under the direct control of her unknown Fae antagonist. And he—he finally had her, soft and yielding, in his arms. But she was unconscious, and he was fit for nothing.
    The door opened a moment later and an elderly security guard put his head out. Fortunately the watchman was a relatively simple-minded man, and Miach was able to find just enough power in his voice to beguile him. He told the guard that everything was fine now, that the flashing lights had been a false alarm, that Miss Whitney was showing a few donors the view from the roof.
    Miach suggested the man leave the alarm disabled so as to allow the rest of Helene’s party up when they arrived. Then Miach dismissed him.
    Next he took off his jacket, rolled it, and placed it under Helene’s head. Then he called Elada. He told his right hand in a few terse sentences exactly what had happened.
    “Send Liam and Nial,” he said. “She’s out cold, and it’s better if she wakes naturally. There are iron stairs. And iron dust. They can carry her down.”
    “And you?” asked Elada, his resonant voice betraying some