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Fae don’t care about death, unless they are the cause of it. They don’t understand the fallout it has for humanity because they don’t appreciate the limits of mortality. Some, like Calliope, were true immortals. An eighty-year lifespan seems laughable to someone who was born at the same time as the solar system.
Humans were fireflies to true immortals. Fun to watch and play with, but ultimately disposable.
I didn’t want to believe Calliope felt like that, but I knew she didn’t think about things the same way I did. If she had killed the boy, I wondered if it even registered to her that she shouldn’t have.
I watched the blonde actress a moment longer and pondered what sort of True Hollywood Story would be told about her short life in three or four more years. Natalie Wood still had my favorite. Maybe this girl would find a way to one-up the queen of Hollywood exits.
Turning away from the group at the bar, I went to follow my party but stopped abruptly when I walked almost directly into a small, delicate woman. She was so compact she made me feel burly. And though she had a glamour in place, something about her felt unsettlingly familiar to me. The woman did not smile at me or try to pretend at pleasantness.
“You,” she said, her voice high and light but loaded with accusation.
A man, tall and spindly and just as shockingly beautiful, came to stand beside her. Their light features and wide eyes were a mirror of each other, and there was no way to ignore they must be related.
I still couldn’t place them, but a shiver thrilled through me, a warning that I should move on.
The small woman got a hold on my wrist before I could jerk away. Her skin was cold, but it felt like she was burning me.
“I remember you,” she whispered. “You tainted it. ”
Tugging my arm free, I took two steps back. “What are you talking about?”
But I’d heard those words before. At a different fae club, one where these two hadn’t bothered hiding what they were. They’d had white hair then, and skin the color and radiance of pearls. Their eyes had been inhumanly wide and round. I could see all that now, glimmering under the surface of the lie their faces projected.
I’d been carrying my katana then, and the woman had freaked out about it, claiming I’d tainted the blade. Later I discovered it was bad form to kill vampires with a fae-wrought blade. It wasn’t like I knew that at the time. Regardless of my ignorance, this chick had been offended.
She moved towards me again, but this time I saw it coming and dodged her grasping fingers.
“Don’t touch me,” I warned.
She withdrew her hand and sank into her brother’s waiting arms. “She yelled at me. ”
Was this girl for real?
Holden came around the two fae to find me and eyed them warily. “Did you get lost?” He kept his gaze focused on them even though his words were directed at me.
“Just ran into some old…friends,” I replied.
He placed his hand between my shoulders, guiding me around the watchful fae siblings. “What was that all about?” he asked once we were out of earshot.
“Don’t worry about it. ”
We caught up with Desmond and Carla, the woman standing well out of arm’s reach from the werewolf. Neither of them looked terribly happy about being left alone with the other.
“It would be appreciated,” Carla began, “if you wouldn’t speak to the patrons while you’re here. ”
I pursed my lips and gave her a cold glare. “They stopped me. ”
Carla rolled her eyes. “Let’s keep moving. ”
We followed her to a narrow hall where she pointed to a door marked Private and then vanished as quickly as she’d originally appeared. I was too pleased she was gone to worry about how she’d disappeared so quietly. I moved away from the men to knock, but before my knuckles fell, the black door jerked open.
I pulled my hand away before I accidentally knocked on the face of a small, grizzled Chinese woman. She was four and a half feet tall at best and leaned on a knotted wood cane, staring up at me with shiny, beadlike eyes. She reminded me of my great-grandmother La Sorciere. Having a scary nameless witch as your maternal figurehead made it easy to respect wee, ancient-looking women.
If this woman was in charge of a fae club,
she had power. She definitely wasn’t human.
She smiled, showing a dark mouth with mostly missing teeth. “You’re looking for someone, I understand?”
