Sparrow Hill Road 2010 By Seanan(90)

"Oh!" Bobby snaps his fingers. "Well, shoot, she just slipped my mind. Probably because she's been so quiet since I had her gagged. Never let a bean sidhe speak her mind if you can help it. Those bitches have tongues that can leave a man bleeding, if you let them run."

"Give her back."

"Wasn't aware that she was yours in the first place."

He's toying with me; he'd never have taken her if he didn't know I'd come after him. He's been toying with me since Bethany, and maybe before that. I force myself not to lunge for him, and say, as calmly as I can, "She's my friend. I want her returned, safely. Now."

Bobby smiles. It's that same sweet, seductive expression that once won him a million hearts and dampened almost as many pairs of panties, but there's something sour underneath it, something that taints and twists whatever appeal he might once have had. This apple's rotten, through and through. "It doesn't work that way. You know it doesn't work that way."

"What do you want, Bobby?"

"What do I ever want?"

"Didn't we just do this? It won't work. Persephone's blessing says hands off to dead boys who want to hurt me."

"Maybe so, but Hades outranks her." Bobby reaches inside his shirt, pulling out a chain. The charm dangling from its end makes my stomach twist itself into a knot and makes my tattoo burn hotter than ever. "You put this on of your own free will and the Lady of the Dead won't give one good goddamn what I do to that pretty little soul of yours."

Gary's engine snarls in the darkness behind me. I want to turn and run to him, throw myself into the driver's seat and get the hell out of here, but I can't. Emma needs me. I was a soft touch when I was alive, and Persephone help me, I may be a softer touch now that I'm dead. "So you expect me to just give myself up? I don't think so."

"And neither do I." Neither of us expected to hear Bethany's voice. That's clear from the way Bobby's head whips around, expression a mask of pure fury. I turn more slowly, somehow resigned to the sight of my recently-dead niece walking toward us through the midnight. The darkness doesn't quite touch her; it skates off her skin like water off a duck's back. She may be dead, but she's not the sort of dead girl who belongs to the ghostroads. They can't touch her. "There are rules for engagements of this kind, Bobby. You know that."

"What kind of tricky shit is this?" he demands, in the voice of a petulant child. "You can't be here, you dumb bitch. You're too used up to dig your way this deep."

"That was a different time, and the past is another country," says Bethany, and her voice is the rustle of crows in the corn, the sound of the wind blowing down empty highways. "You're trying to break the rules, Bobby. You've interfered with people who never touched the crossroads, nor made any bargains there. That can't be allowed, I'm afraid."

He stabs his finger in my direction, snapping, "She isn't protected. Not from me. Not from this."

"That's true; she has no protections against you that haven't been given to her on her journeys. You killed her, and that gives you the advantage. But the bean sidhe wasn't yours to touch. You never killed her, and she never made a deal." Bethany's smile is sweet, and no kinder than a rattlesnake's. "You can make a wager. You can issue a challenge. But you can't make an exchange."

"What the fuck are you trying to say?"

"She's saying you can make me fight you for Emma, but you can't just trade one for one," I say, finally getting the gist of what Bethany's trying to say. "I guess you don't have that kind of authority."

"Who's to say she does?" Bobby looks truly angry now, fury distorting that eternally-youthful face in ways that aren't attractive in the slightest. "Why does that dumb little bitch get to tell me what I can or can't do?"

"Because that 'dumb little bitch' is speaking for the crossroads." I glance toward Bethany, seeing the miles stretching out to forever in her eyes. "Isn't that right?"

"Got it in one, Aunt Rose," says Bethany. She smiles, and for a moment—just a moment—she's a normal teenage girl, unchanged, innocent. The girl she might have been, if she'd never fallen prey to Bobby Cross. The moment passes, and the eyes she turns on Bobby are filled with shadows too deep and too dark to have ever been human. "I am here because you are ours, and your actions here endanger more than you have the right to damage. Because we were...acquainted...while I lived, I get to be the one to judge whatever you decide is fair."

"I killed her, I should get to eat her," snarls Bobby. "That's what's fair."

"But she got away from you. She walked the Ocean Lady and won Persephone's favor. She found the crossroads, twice, and was tempted, but made no deals. She's passed outside your ownership, and if you want her, you have to win her." Bethany folds her arms, smiling sweetly. "You have to pay if you want to play. So find a fee that suits you."