Silver Skin (A Cold Iron Novel) Read Free

felt like the shock of an earthquake, but Miach knew it was nothing of the kind. The house and grounds were warded. It had been a long time since any Fae had been foolish enough to try to attack him with magic. His race, even reduced as it was, warred constantly: to settle old grudges, to satisfy an ingrained need for violence, to fight the boredom of the centuries. But Miach’s enemies knew better than to bring the fight to his doorstep.
    Nevertheless, someone had just carried magic into his house. A grave offense, one the miscreant would die for. His wards would already have dissipated any petty spells the intruder carried. Death would take care of the rest.
    And it would be meted out by Miach and Elada. Fae sorcerers always went into battle teamed with a champion. The warrior protected the sorcerer, who would be vulnerable while performing complicated magics, and the sorcerer healed the swordsman and enhanced his battle skills with spells to multiply dexterity and speed.
    Elada passed into the library, employing the Fae ability to travel through any substance but cold iron, and appeared in the center of the room, sword in hand.
    “Finn?” he asked, alluding to the Fae warlord who controlled Charlestown, and who had been Miach’s rival for centuries, but quiet just of late.
    “Most likely,” said Miach. When trouble came, with the recent exception of the business with Beth Carter and the shocking reappearance of Conn of the Hundred Battles, it usually came from Finn and his unruly family.
    The video chat on Miach’s computer rang. It was an improvement over the scratchy old intercom and it helped make the rambling house livable.
    “You have a visitor,” said Miach’s almost human grandson, Liam, who, along with his brother Nial, ran much of Miach’s legitimate business—and most of his criminal enterprises as well.
    “I could guess as much, Liam. Who is it?” asked Miach.
    “Remember how you asked me to keep an eye on Helene Whitney, even though you promised the Druid woman to let her well alone?” asked Liam, whose all too human conscience often proved inconvenient.
    “I promised not to approach her myself,” said Miach. He had taken a geis upon himself when he made the promise, stronger because it had been made to a Druid, and one who would come very near to being his equal in power someday. “What does Helene Whitney have to do with our visitor?”
    “My contracts professor would call your claim a distinction without a difference,” said Liam.
    Miach knew he would regret loosening his hold on this younger generation, allowing them to live more fully in the human world outside South Boston.
    “Your contracts professor would be unwise, then, to bargain with a Fae.”
    Liam sighed. “Beth Carter told you to leave Helene Whitney alone.”
    “And I have,” Miach said pleasantly.
    “Then why is she here, with enough magic on her to trip the wards and break every glass in the house?”

Chapter 2

    H elene had never been to Miach’s home before, but Beth had described it from one of her visits. The sorcerer was tutoring Beth, teaching her how to use her Druid talents. Helene hadn’t liked the idea, could not, no matter what her best friend said, bring herself to trust Miach.
    Now she would have to.
    South Boston was a world removed from the bustle of the rest of the city. Much of it was infill, connecting the old fort at Castle William, originally an island, with the mainland. Separated from downtown by the Fort Point Channel, it had long been a tough neighborhood of immigrants, one group displacing the next until the Irish had come and stuck.
    It was fashionable now to buy houses and condos in the gentrified parts of Southie. The Shamrocks and the Winter Hill gang were only memories these days, but muggings and robberies were still alarmingly common. And of course Miach MacCecht’s close-knit crime family remained, collecting protection money from the bars and liquor stores, receiving their tithe