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He gave a soft laugh. "Which do you want first? The ridiculous, the sublime, or the frightening?"
Uh-oh. The latter sounded bad. Real bad. "Start us in easy," I said.
"Okay, ridiculous it is. Unfortunately, Camille, you're the recipient of this lovely little piece of news."
"Uh-oh. Why am I always the butt of the joke?" If he was starting with ridiculous, and it involved me, whatever it was couldn't be good for my ego.
Chase laughed and took a deep breath. "Okay, ready?"
"As I'll ever be."
"It seems that one of the local tabloids managed to capture pictures of the fight on film. I guess they had a police scanner and heard about the ruckus. I saw the early A.M. edition. The shots are pretty clear. Camille, one of them is of you. You were casting a spell. They not only got a good shot of your boobs, but they also captured a swirl of light surrounding you. Looked like something right out of Harry Potter."
That wasn't so bad. "Well, that doesn't sound so horrible. If they had to capture me on film, at least it sounds like they caught a good shot."
"Wait till you hear what the headlines had to say."
Uh-oh. "Spill it."
"The Seattle Tattler captioned the picture, 'Alien Seductress Seeks Tryst with Trolls Via Fiery Lust Spell.' He knew enough to wait for my reaction, which wasn't long in coming.
"What the fuck did you say?" I leapt up as Menolly and Delilah snorted. "They said I was out for a roll in the hay with the trolls? Oh gods, I'll never live this one down—not among my customers, and not among the other Fae here in Seattle."
"Let's see… apparently, you're supposed to be in league with the grays from outer space. They say here that you're the bait they use to lure in unwitting abductees and that you seduce them, then help with the… probing… after you drag your victims back to the mother ship." He let out a bark of laughter.
"That sounds more up my alley," Menolly said, cracking a smile.
I cringed. "You can't be serious?" Closing my eyes, I winced as the headache I'd had the day before thundered back, bringing reinforcements. "Not only am I insulted—likening Fae to aliens is just all sorts of wrong—but I can't believe that the Tattler believes the public would fall for that."
"John Q. Public believes a lot of things that aren't good for him. Like that the government is honest, that global warming is due to the liberal Faeries dumping woo-woo powder in the scientists' coffee, and that the world was created in seven days." Chase let out a long sigh. "Trust me, even people who know the story's a hatchet job don't care. They eat up anything that hints of scandal. Just like pigs at the trough."
I grumbled. "But I'm half-Fae. We're real. The aliens are… well… we dunno, but they aren't around to answer any questions, now are they?" Pausing, I contemplated what it might take to reduce the Tattler's offices to a pile of rubble. "You think the city would object if I leveled their building by asking Smoky to sit on it?"
Iris let out a chortle. "That'd show them, all right" She flipped another pancake on the stack and carried it over to the table. "Breakfast in ten minutes, girls. Set the table."
Delilah jumped out of her chair and opened the cupboard, taking out three settings of the Old Country Roses china we'd picked out when we first arrived.
"I've got to get underground. Can we hurry this up?" Menolly said in the direction of the phone. "You also mentioned sublime and scary news. What else should we know?"
"Just a minute. I have to put you on hold," Chase said as another voice echoed through the speaker. The line went mute.
"Well, good for him," Iris said. "Promotions are important in the human sphere of things."
"In the OIA, too, which is why we knew we were doomed when they reassigned us over Earthside." Delilah carried the maple syrup, butter, and honey over to the table.
Iris dished up the sausages and bacon while I poured orange juice and tea for the three of us. Menolly didn't eat, of course, and Maggie had been fed before Iris cooked our own breakfast. Now she was curled in her pen, snuggled into a ball as she snoozed gently with little moophs and ummphs occasionally escaping from her nose. Menolly bent over the playpen to lay a light blanket over her. The house was drafty, and even though she was in a warm place near the stove, we tried to make sure she didn't catch a chill.
Chase came back on the line as we settled at the table. "Okay, quick rundown on the rest. In a turn nobody expected, the United Faith Foundation has accepted the Order of Bast as an official church. This appears to be spurring on some of the Earthside Fae to register their own spiritual groups with the UFF. Of course, the fundies are giving them hell over it, but the government's already acknowledged them as a bona fide religion. The UFF is calling for tolerance and acceptance of all faiths."
"Score one for common sense," I said. "At least the Order of Bast will have the law on their side if the zealots take action against them. Okay, bad news next, I guess."
Chase let out a long sigh. "This is really bad, girls. A group of Freedom's Angels are on the run down in Portland. They trashed a pastry shop owned by an Elf, gang-raped her, and beat her so bad that the doctors don't know if she'll recover. I contacted the Elfin ambassador down there. He's talking vigilante action. The Portland cops are asking for our help, since we have the best FH-CSI team in the nation. In fact, every unit in the country is based on ours."
Ashen-faced, Delilah dropped her fork.
Menolly's eyes flared red. She stood, fists clenched. "Those mother-fucking sons of bitches. They haven't caught them yet?"
"No, that's why Portland asked for our help. They need to round up these guys before the Elves send out a posse." I could hear the catch in his words. This had hit Chase hard. He worked on a daily basis with Sharah and Jacinth, two elfin women. "Because you and I both know that if the elves reach them first, there won't be enough of the Freedom's Angels left to use as a dust rag."
