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* * *
p
The mirror vanished the moment Alfie’s heart stopped, neat trick, that. Whatever master they served, he had formidable power. I felt the temperature in the room drop and spun instantly but I was too late. The wall was brick, the portal closed.
I kicked through faded popcorn sleeves and empty beer cans, scattering roaches, as I retrieved my sword and collected my guns, acknowledging I’d probably not have gone through it anyway.
If their “him” was the same “him” AOZ had referenced, delivering myself straight to his lair, without a plan or backup, without anyone knowing where I was going, bordered on suicidal and that’s something I’ve never been.
Still, I’d have liked time to inspect the glass.
I searched both bodies, patting them down, stripping the cameras from their beanies, hooking the unbroken pair of glasses over the neckline of my shirt for later inspection. I tucked two thin metal cases the size of wallets that contained a few dozen of their lethal quills into my jacket. In an inner pocket of their coats, I found hideous Halloween masks and rubber skeleton gloves. Of course, children thought they were Unseelie. In the dark of night, after the horrors the human race had witnessed, it was a fair assumption.
My search yielded no other particularly useful information but the evening had. I had much to mull over, cull for clues, posit theories. Theories are a fluid road map for solving a mystery and, if broached with an open mind and scrupulous attention to detail, they grant the answers you seek.
At the moment, however, I had a cruelly starved member of the Nine in my bed that might already have some of those answers.
And the blood in the corpses was cooling.
* * *
p
Once, a few weeks back, on a warm, starlit evening, I’d walked the Temple Bar District, doing nothing but enjoying myself. I need to do that every now and then. Keeps me connected to my world.
Within the confines of those protected streets, patrolled by the New Guardians and, I suspected, warded by the queen of the Fae herself, affording humans a safe haven where they might do more than merely survive, they could live, I forgot about my many responsibilities for a few hours.
I tapped a foot along with street musicians. I stopped in pubs and danced with patrons. I threw darts with a hen party, intentionally missing a lot and gushing over the bride’s picture of her dress, acutely aware my future would afford few occasions for beautiful dresses and never a wedding gown. I sipped a Guinness and grabbed a bite to eat at my favorite fish house.
Before leaving the seemingly spelled haven I stared across the street, between passing, boisterous partiers, through the glass pane of a restaurant, watching a family celebrate their daughter’s birthday with a chocolate layer cake, my mouth watering. Chocolate is one of very few foods I have an emotional reaction to.
I wondered what it would be like to have that kind of life. I couldn’t fathom it. I’m wired differently. I wouldn’t be able to enjoy it. I’d be incessantly scanning my environment, knowing someone was out there, in need, and I was eating cake. Situational awareness is instinctive for me. I can’t override it.
Back in my apartment I leaned against the wall in the foyer, stretched my legs long and crossed them at the ankles, watching the beast eat the bodies I’d hauled up four flights of stairs because the elevator in my building was on the blink again and, since no one actually lived here, I’d have to figure out how to fix it myself. I’d dragged the deeply exhausted creature out into the foyer on my comforter to feed him there. No blood, no gristle, no guts in my bed is an unbreakable rule.
The beast roused the moment he smelled the bodies, making quick work of one before moving to the next.
I stopped watching and stared out the bank of tall windows, mulling the day’s events.
When at last the beast rolled back onto the comforter, which was now bloody and meant I would have to do my version of shopping again, since no amount of bleach ever gets all the bloodstains out, I tugged him back to my bed and cleaned up the mess that remained on the foyer floor, then sanitized the kitchen of the remains of Shazam’s feast, thinking about chocolate cake the entire time.
* * *
p
Later, I stood in my bedroom with the slumbering beast and stripped, inspecting my clothes. The back of my jacket was destroyed and the butt of my jeans worn so thin I’d split them if I wore them again, so I tossed both in the trash.
I don’t shower multiple times a day unless I’m covered with blood that doesn’t come off with my clothing, but sometimes I feel the need to rinse a more intangible filth from my body.
After I dried my hair, I inspected myself in the mirror. The blackness of my skin was static with a small exception: a single obsidian vein trellised the left side of my neck and disappeared beneath my curls.
“Well, damn,” I muttered as I pulled a long-sleeved, close-fitting black shirt over my head. I tugged on the same nylon glove that had served as protection from my lethal touch earlier while pondering what to do about my neck. I couldn’t think of any reason someone might touch that six-inch expanse of my skin and I despise turtlenecks, they make me feel like I’m choking. Still, I had no guarantee that—Bloody hell, Rae always flung her arms around my neck.
I considered the thinness of the fabric of my glove, a silky, nearly transparent nylon, then rummaged in the vanity drawer, retrieved a roll of Duck Tape—don’t ask why I have it in my bathroom, my life is strange—and taped the side of my neck, deciding as thick as my hair was, it would protect anyone who touched my head.
I tugged on a pair of faded sweatpants and draped a well-worn quilt over the enormous sleeping beast. After a moment’s deliberation, I shrugged and curled up on the small amount of available mattress to catch a few hours of sleep, sword at my side.
* * *
