“It’s turning things upside down,” Esperanza said. “We’re at what’s meant to be a scientific conference, trying to apply logic and science to these questions. And back home attendance at religious services is up over forty percent, and people say the reason is that they’re scared. If there’s magic and monsters in the world, they want some kind of protection against it, and they’re going to church to get it.”
Ben said, “One of the sessions I went to yesterday was a presentation by a lawyer from Tanzania who’s been involved in prosecutions of murderers of albinos. Some people there believe the body parts of albinos have magical properties, so people with albinism are killed and dismembered and sold off for potions and good-luck charms. The trade’s apparently gotten very profitable over the last few years. He said they’ve had a tough time getting convictions, but got some help when a well-known traditional healer came out and declared that albinos aren’t any more magical than anyone else. He also said that not everyone listens to the guy. Magic’s real, people say. Why shouldn’t this be, too? As if that justifies killing someone for their hair.”
“We think we’re solving one problem and five more rise up,” Esperanza said.
What a topic for dinner table conversation. I was horrified. I pursed my lips, staring into the ruby depths of my wine.
“Kitty?” Ben prompted.
“I’m trying to figure out how to gracefully change the subject to something a little more cheerful,” I said. “Like I wonder if there are any fairy rock bands? Surely if they’re eating in restaurants they’ve got rock bands.”
Ben said, “Maybe you’re just not looking in the right places. Have you seen Prince’s videos?”
“No, I think a real fairy rock band would be a little more subtle than that. Like Jethro Tull, maybe.”
“You call that subtle?”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“What did I tell you?” Luis said, leaning close to his sister. “Never a dull moment.”
“Hmm, I can’t wait for your keynote speech,” she said—purring, almost. “What are you going to talk about?”
I closed my eyes and rested a hand on my forehead, a gesture of suffering. “Oppression,” I said dramatically.
Dinner was good. Nice, mellow, out with friends, no pressure. Ben may even have stopped glaring at Luis for a few minutes. Naturally, the respite couldn’t last.
We’d finished eating and had moved on to coffee and more conversation when activity at the front door caught Luis’s attention. He stared, frowning.
“What is it?” I asked, glancing over to see.
“Friends of yours?” he said.
Three men, smelling distinctly of lycanthrope, had just entered and surveyed the restaurant. They were tough guys, in leather jackets, designer jeans, and boots. Two had beards, and all were broad through the shoulders. Moving like fighters, they were shoulder to shoulder, attention out—stalking, like predators. The one in front spoke to the maître d’, who nodded toward our table. He shook his head in response, and the trio moved to the bar, where they perched warily, uncomfortably.
“Werewolves?” Cormac said.
“Yeah,” Ben answered.
“Problem?” the bounty hunter answered.
They were here looking for me, obviously. But this wasn’t the place to start trouble. So far they were just watching.
“Let’s wait and see,” I answered.
We tried to pretend that the strangers weren’t obviously here to keep a watch on us.
Esperanza said, “When you first got here, those two girls at the bar—they were watching you, too.”
“No, that was just a coincidence,” I said, because I couldn’t cope with much more paranoia.
“Right,” Ben said. “Didn’t mean a thing, they were just fairies.”
Luis chuckled. “Really? Like leprechauns and pixies?”
“Not exactly,” I said, waving him off. “But yeah, sort of.”
His smile broadened. “Makes you wonder what else is hanging around the conference.”
I sighed. “Djinn, wizards, gods, goddesses.”
Esperanza leaned forward. “Did you say gods?”
My mouth opened to start an explanation, then closed again. Where did I start?
We paid our bill, collected our things, and went toward the door. When the trio of werewolves at the bar moved to intercept us in the restaurant’s vestibule, I wasn’t surprised. I caught the leader’s gaze and held it. His companions flanked him just as Ben and Cormac flanked me. Luis and Esperanza stood aside, wary.
“Kitty Norville,” he said. His accent was rolling, quick. French or Italian, maybe. His frown twitched, nervous.
“Yes?”
“I serve the Master of Venice. He sends a message—a warning.” I stepped forward, offended, ready to argue; he stepped back and looked away, a submissive move. A peace offering. He wasn’t here to fight. “A friendly warning. You do not know what you’re meddling with. You do not know the true situation among the vampires of Europe and you’d be better to stay away. Your enemies are powerful.”
Wasn’t anything I didn’t already know. The trick to facing off with another wolf pack was to stand your ground, not flinch, not let your gaze slip for even a moment. He was probably six feet tall, leaving me quite a bit shorter than him. I tried not to show it. “A message like that is a sure way to keep me interested. Like waving a red flag at a bull.”
“Please, that is not my Master’s intention—”
The front door opened again, letting in a cool breath of night air and a fresh wave of werewolf scent. Caleb and one of his wolves, a shorter man with close-shaven hair and a surly expression, entered, and frowned past me to the other wolves.
“You can step away from her now,” Caleb said.
The Italian wolf bared his teeth and his voice burred like a growl. “Stay out of this!”
“You’re not the one giving orders here, friend.” Caleb didn’t have to growl, or show his teeth, and he still managed to radiate anger. In response, the Italian wolf hunched his back, bracing his shoulders like hackles stiffening.
“Guys, stop it,” I said, putting myself between them, breaking the line of sight. “Everything’s just fine. You don’t really want to start something here, do you?”
People in the restaurant were staring. The maître d’ had been away from her stand, and hovered nearby, gripping her own hands, waiting for a chance to return.
“You want to take this outside?” I said, indicating the doorway.
Of course, no one wanted to be the first one to move, so I did, pushing past Cormac and Ben, then Caleb and his lieutenant, to finally reach the sidewalk outside. I didn’t know how we’d managed to all squeeze into that space. The city air smelled fresh and wild after the closeness inside.
The standoff re-created itself on the sidewalk: the Italian wolves attempting to stare me down, Caleb and his wolf staring them down, Ben and Cormac tensed for some kind of action, and Luis and Esperanza lingering on the edges, cautiously watching. We were all anxious, but no one was resorting to overtly aggressive movement. It should have been comforting—it didn’t matter where we came from, we all spoke the same body language.
I turned to the alpha of the Italian wolves. “What’s your name?”
He hesitated before answering, “I serve the Master of Venice.”
“Oh, come on, what’s that supposed to mean?”
He shut his mouth, pressing lips into a line.
“Okay. Fine. So this warning … is it a generic ‘here be dragons’ kind of warning or is there something specific I need to be looking for?”
He said, firmly, “Don’t meddle. Stay at your conference where you belong. Protect yourself—your pack.”
“My pack?”
“Them,” he said, nodding at Ben and Cormac. “Your friends. Your army wolf.”
Tyler. “He doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
“You won’t get to decide that.”
r />
I stepped up to him. “Is something going to happen? What is it? What do you know?”
He backed away, slouching—he hadn’t meant to push me, I gathered. He didn’t want to fight. He probably hadn’t expected me to stand up to him at all. “I—I don’t know anything. Just … we don’t know what’s going to happen, none of us do. But the situation—it’s dangerous.”
“I already knew that.”
“Please believe me—my Master sympathizes. He only wants to help.”
“I’m not sure he’s the kind of guy I’d want help from,” I said.
Recovering his confidence—his dignity—the alpha wolf bowed his head in a human gesture of respect. “Then I apologize for interrupting your evening.”
He nodded at his two companions, and the trio stalked away, moving gracefully along the street and into the night. We stared after them.
“They must think you’re pretty important to be sending you warnings,” Ben said.
“I think I need to call Tyler,” I said. Not for any particular reason. Just to make sure he was okay. I turned to Caleb and pointed. “And where did you come from? I don’t need you babysitting me, you know.”
“I wasn’t babysitting you,” Caleb said. “I was trailing them.” He nodded down the street where the Italian wolves had turned the corner.
“Then what were they up to, really?”
“Exactly what that alpha said, I think. Some of the vampires want you staying out of things but are polite enough not to actually bump you off. Nice, isn’t it?”
“Real nice,” I muttered. “Now I’m going to be worried about everyone for the rest of the week. Even more worried.” The shadows all held werewolf packs, vampires, fairies. Who knew what else?
“Think we should follow them, gov?” Caleb’s lieutenant said, hands shoved in pockets of his jacket, nodding after the Italians.
“Certaintly,” he said. “Might be educational.”
“You’ll call me if you find anything juicy?” I said.
The two British wolves started down the street after the others. Caleb tipped an imaginary hat at me. “Of course.”
We watched them leave, and the multitude of shadows left my spine prickling.
“This conspiracy needs a flow chart,” Ben said.
“You were right,” Cormac added. He wore the closest thing to a grin I’d ever seen on him. “Amelia thinks this is just fascinating.”
“Great,” I said, and sighed.
Lingering by the wall of the building, Luis and his sister looked like they should have been munching on a bucket of popcorn: wide-eyed, fascinated.
I turned to Luis. “What was that you said? Never a dull moment?”
“I won’t argue,” he said.
“I’m impressed,” Esperanza said. “Handling all those wolves? That big one was actually cowering, I think.”
“It’s either that or get eaten. I’d prefer not to get eaten.”
“Jaguars are solitary,” she said. “Makes it easier.”
She might have been right. We started walking back to the hotel. I dug in my pocket for my cell phone so I could call Tyler and see if he’d gotten any mysterious visits or warnings.
When I looked up after punching in his number, the two Fae women stood on the sidewalk in front of me, blocking the way. Without Cormac’s charm, they really did look like ordinary women, excitable grad students living it up at a conference. Maybe they were that, maybe fairies had a reason to go to school. But I had to remind myself that they were more than they seemed.
And one of them was holding what looked like a tiny bottle, maybe a perfume bottle with a spray nozzle, and she was getting ready to fire.
I stopped and stared, and the rest of my party crowded in behind me. We all froze, the two women crouched like they were about to run away, us gaping in astonishment. Not many people could sneak up on a pack of lycanthropes—and a human with his pockets full of second sight charms.
“Hi,” I said finally, as if they were acquaintances I hadn’t expected to run into.
By their crinkling eyes and widening grins, I guessed that they were about to do something with that perfume spritzer, and that I probably wouldn’t like it. I brought out a little Wolf, hunched up my shoulders, and stepped forward.
“Okay, just who are you guys and why do you keep showing up in my space?”
“Um…” The one with the spritzer hid her hands behind her back. “How ’bout we pretend you never saw us?”
“But—” I stopped again, because a newcomer was standing behind them, and she’d appeared just as suddenly as the first two had.
Tall, striking, she appeared regal despite the patchwork nature of her clothing: scuffed boots, a flowing gypsy skirt, an oversized lumpy sweater, and a faded, lacy shawl. Her golden hair flowed in thick, lush waves down her back. She wore a smile like she knew secrets.
“I’ll take that, thank you very much,” she said, plucking the spritzer out of the young woman’s hand and pocketing it somewhere. “And after all that talk about not causing trouble.”
The two fairies weren’t giggling anymore. One was biting her lip, the other had her hands to her face, flinching and squinting as if expecting a loud noise. They cringed away from the woman—and who was she? I stole a glance back at Cormac for confirmation; he gave me a single nod. So yeah, she was one of them, too. Even more of one.
“Exactly what kind of trouble are we talking about here?” I said. They were avoiding looking at me, and the regal woman had put her arms around them, drawing them close. I had never seen two people look more sheepish.
“Oh, just a little old-school mischief,” she said, giving them a squeeze. “A spot of nectar in the eyes, a bit of confusion with mortal affections.” She looked at me, and Luis. “Never mind that I told them to stay away.”
I needed a second to work out the puzzle. I’d been seeing the two fairies all weekend, so they’d been seeing me, which meant they knew about the history between me and Luis, they way he’d been carrying on, Ben’s reaction—
“You mean like some kind of A Midsummer Night’s Dream shtick? For real?” I said.
The one who’d had the spritzer perked up. “Never gets old! Ow!” she added, when her captor pinched her shoulder.
“We’ll just be getting out of your way now,” she said and grabbed the two by their shirts to drag them off. They didn’t even struggle.
“Wait—that’s it?” I said.
She paused, glanced back. “What more do you want?”
I wanted an interview with her for the show. What were their kind doing in the middle of the city? What did they get out of playing pranks on us? On anyone? I realized: I wanted all her secrets. Wasn’t going to get them, no doubt. “How do we know they won’t come right back and bother us again?”
She pointed at her two charges, who huddled where they were. Convinced they’d stay put, she turned back to me, tilted her head. An odd expression, when she’d been commanding before. My image of her kept changing, even though I hadn’t looked away. “You want a guarantee? Or a wish—that’s usually what mortals ask for. All right, then—what’s your wish?”
One thing popped into my mind, and it wasn’t an interview this time. If I could have anything, I knew. I didn’t even have to think about it. Whether or not she could even grant such a wish didn’t occur to me—it couldn’t hurt to ask, right? I just had to say it, and if she said no I wouldn’t have lost anything, I couldn’t be more disappointed than I already was. But if she said yes …
“Nobody answer that,” Cormac said. “It’s a trick.”
I hesitated, my mouth open to speak, and realized I could be more disappointed. I took a deep breath to settle myself, and the exhale was a little shaky.
The woman put her hands on her hips and glared at Cormac. “You’ve had dealings with us before, I see.”
“Not hard to read a few stories,” Cormac said. He glanced to me. “She’ll twist your words, you’d get what you asked for but n
ot what you meant. Or she’d ask for more in return than you could give. Better to ask for a rain check.” He spoke with a confidence that I wasn’t feeling. “We accept your offer, to be redeemed at a later date.”
“You make us beholden to you,” the woman—the leader of them—said, disbelieving. “Do you think that’s wise?”
“We’ll see,” he said.
I hoped he and Amelia knew what they were doing. They seemed to know what they were doing. Did Cormac ever seem otherwise? Would we know if he didn’t?
“Well then. I owe you a wish.”
“We’ll need a token of that,” Cormac said.
“You’re a demanding mortal.” The woman pulled a scarf from some pocket or other with a flourish. Pale gold, wispy, and floral, it floated in her grip as if it might have been a ribbon of mist, until she dropped it in Cormac’s outstretched hand, when it became just a strip of cloth.
My phone started ringing. I’d had it in my hand the whole time, set to Tyler’s number. I couldn’t remember if I’d actually dialed him or not. I stepped away from the others and answered.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Kitty, did you just try to call me?” the soldier said.
“Yeah, I did. I’m sorry, I was distracted.”
“You think?” he said, chuckling.
How did I explain the last ten minutes? I didn’t. “I just wanted to check in. Have you had any weird encounters? Any more random recruiters or warnings? Vampires hanging around?”
“You mean more than you’d expect at a conference on the supernatural?” He was still chuckling, and I flushed, chagrined.
“Yeah, exactly.”
“Not really. But I do feel like I’m walking around with my hackles up all the time.”
“Yeah, I know the feeling. Well, let me know if … I don’t know. You see something weird. There’s some bad politics around just now.”