Adam felt his ears. "Geez, of course." As Moira had shown him, he replaced the glamorie, and immediately noticed the difference between elven and human perceptions. His vision was not as sharp, and he didn't feel as strong. Moira stood back, out of sight. When he opened the door, he must have been presentable to the pizza human who was standing on the front steps with their dinner in a big vinyl box. The Dominique's guy didn't seem to notice anything amiss as he counted out the change.
Adam closed the door, and as he stood there, holding the two-for-ones, Moira changed him back. His vision sharpened, and his energy returned. I'm not going to like going back to being a human, even temporarily, he thought morosely.
Adam entered the living room and announced, "Dinner is served."
"That smells sooooo goooood," Samantha said, holding a stack of plates and forks. "I never did get to eat that orange at work."
"Your hired servants put the kill in boxes before they present it to you?" Marbann said. "Most odd, these human ways."
Adam set the pizza down on the coffee table and opened the long cardboard box. The vultures descended on the kill.
All except Marbann, who gaped at the pizza, openmouthed. He picked up and examined one of two little plastic table thingies used to keep the box lid from touching the pizza. He held it up and exclaimed, "How did they manage to kill this strange beast with one of these?"
Moira almost choked on her slice. "Marbann, this is not an animal. It is a combination of ingredients, part pig, and part . . . well, pig. Something like a boar. Sausage and Canadian bacon. And cheese, made from milk. The red sauce is made from a vegetable. The crust is, a—well, never mind. It would take too long to explain baking."
Marbann shook his head. "Why go to all that trouble? It is much easier to cook the boar on a spit, and the vegetables taste much better by themselves."
As Spence devoured his slice, he said between mouthfuls, "It has been a long time since I've arrived from Underhill. I remember thinking the same thing, but after awhile I grew to like human food. Humans don't have magic, remember, and they have to go to extra trouble to make their meals enjoyable."
"I can't imagine life without pizza," Samantha said. "For humans, too much of this causes fat to build up around their stomachs. Elves have no such problem, you see."
"Humans gain fat when they eat?" Marbann was aghast. "Then why do they eat this pizza?"
"Because, my dear Marbann," Samantha said, "that is the way of the universe. Humans have little control over their lives, their physical surroundings. And no control whatsoever over the sacred pizza pie."
Marbann tried a piece of Dominique's finest and recoiled violently.
"Humans also like their food very hot. Be careful," Moira said belatedly.
"Thank you for the warning," Marbann said, then frowned, regarding the slice of pizza as if it were poisonous. "I'm not so certain I'm going to like the humans' world."
"It will grow on you," Adam said, already reaching for another piece. "What should we do about our human covers? Should we go in hiding somewhere, or retain our human identities? If Zeldan is looking for us, might it be in our best interests to go somewhere else? Overseas, perhaps?"
"I've always wanted to go to Ireland," Spence said. "I remember my father talking about it in the old days, how easy it was to be elves there. No glamories, no secrets."
"And those days are gone forever, I'm afraid," Samantha said. "I've been giving it some thought, especially recently, since I've suspected we would soon learn the outcome of the battle we fled. It is not easy to go into hiding in the humans' world now. So much is explored. Although the humans don't have magic, they do have advanced technology that can record and track us, if they so desired. When I arrived in the new world over a hundred human years ago, this land was largely unexplored, and an elf could live in relative isolation because so many of the humans here did.
"Now it is much easier to hide in plain sight. I don't think we'll have any trouble staying here for awhile. With our magics we can make do with this abode for some time. What do you think, Adam?"
It was unusual for his mother to ask his opinion of important matters, but she was not his true mother, and he was, after all, the King.
Time to act like one.
"Perhaps it would be best," Adam said, "if we stayed here until we find out more about Zeldan Dhu, and what he's up to. I don't like the idea of spreading out just yet. I think we're all in danger." Black Eagle. Unseleighe. Zeldan Dhu . . .
"They're after you, not us," Spence said. "Don't kid yourself, Ad—I mean, Your Majesty."
"But they won't hesitate to kill us all. That means we all need a sanctuary," Adam said. "And if we're going to go on living like humans, it would look a little odd to keep calling me 'Majesty.' Call me Adam. Like you always have."
"Well, not always," Moira said.
"Those of us with human covers should stick with their human names," Sammi said. "If anything, to keep us from getting confused."
"I'm inclined to agree," Marbann said. He'd eaten one slice and was starting on a second, this time without hesitation. "Zeldan is out there. And we must stay here until the others appear, since I don't know how to move a Gate once it's established. Gating is not my specialty. Those capable of moving a Gate are now dead."
"Alas, 'tis true," Samantha said. "But no matter. We are safe here, for many reasons. My cover is secure with the police department, as is the King's at his place of employment."
"The King, doing manual labor? Is this appropriate?" Marbann said, but he seemed more interested in the pizza, talking around his piece most impolitely.
"What better way to keep an eye on the Marketplace?" Adam said, eyeing the vanishing pizza with distress. "If Zeldan and his people show up there, we would be in the best position to notice it." Maybe we should have ordered more. "And if Spence and I suddenly disappear, that would seem strange, even suspicious. Anyone familiar with the Yaz would notice. Jimmy would be left running the entire place, and he's been fair to us from the very start. I think he deserves the same in return."
"I agree with the King," Samantha said. "At least for now, I think those of us already living in the humans' realm should go on, business as usual."
"Hey, I like cutting hair!" Moira exclaimed. "Most of the time. That little brat today . . ."
Marbann finished his pizza and reached for another, but there was only one left.
"Don't you even think it," Moira said, eyeing the piece. "I've only had three."
Marbann looked hurt. "Well, I've only had two, madam," he said, then his expression softened in evident surrender. "But since I am a gentleman . . ."
While Marbann and Moira discussed the fate of the last piece of Dominique's, the piece glimmered momentarily, then vanished from the tray. They stared at the empty space for several long moments, then looked around.
"Okay," Moira said, accusingly. "Who swiped it?"
And as one, the elves turned to their King, who proudly held up his sausage and Canadian bacon prize.
"I think our King is starting to remember his magic," Marbann said with a hint of pride in his voice.
Samantha had also turned back to Sammi McDaris, the human lady cop. "And now, young man, it's time for you to go to bed. You have a busy day ahead of you," she said, urging him toward his bedroom.
"Aw, Mom," Adam said, half in jest. He was tired and had been ready for bed for the last half hour. That screw-up with the levin bolt happened because he was tired. After a full night's rest, he knew he would control one better, if not perfectly. Learning one element of magic had triggered some recall of the other forms. "Do I have to go to bed now?"
"Yes, you do. Now turn around and march," she commanded. "Moira and I will tuck in the rest of the Folk in the attic."
Adam paused at his door. "Good night, everybody. Sleep as late as you want. I have to be at work tomorrow."
The young elven King flopped down on his unmade bed and promptly fell asleep.
Chapter
Ten
Daryl figured he must have zonked out for a few minutes, since he woke up from a sound sleep on the ruins of his bed. The hangover was better, nearly nonexistent; he had energy and his head didn't threaten to explode as he stood up. He stripped and climbed into his shower, turned it up as hot as he could stand it, and spent a good half hour luxuriating in it. By the time he emerged, he was ready to go out on the town and party all over again.
Standing in the bathroom doorway, drying himself off with a towel, he surveyed the wreckage of his bedroom. Despite his mother's partial attempts to keep the place picked up, the room looked like a bomb had recently detonated. Clothing, some of it actually clean, covered the floor, forming a mound capped by his waterbed. The bed itself was a nest, with clothing and blankets arranged around a vaguely Daryl-shaped cavity. Having already made good use of it, he was up again, ready to go out.
"Where you goin'?" Justin, his little brother, said brightly from the hallway. He stood there, shirtless in a pair of jeans, much as Daryl had been most of the day. Justin had found a recent musical interest in, of all things, the Alan Parsons Project, which had begun cutting albums around 1975, years before the kid was even born, for crissakes.
Justin's only fifteen. An instrumental cut from the I Robot album flowed in from the other bedroom. Little brother had unfashionably long blond hair and stood almost as tall as Daryl, having grown nearly six inches in the last year. His voice had stopped cracking, and could with effort be as deep as Dad's. Daryl had even caught him shaving one morning, and it wasn't make-believe. Uncertain why, Daryl found his recent growth spurts distantly threatening.
"Nowhere," Daryl replied shortly. "Not tonight." Ignoring Justin, he approached the sink and fumbled for the hair dryer.
Justin followed him into the bathroom. "Yeah, you are. I know that look on your face." Daryl glared at his brother's reflection, his additional height distressingly evident as Justin looked down from behind his right shoulder. The blow-dryer roared to life, but wasn't loud enough to drown out Justin, who seemed determined to talk to him no matter what. "You don't bother to get cleaned up unless you're out looking for punta."
The word took him by surprise. "For what?"
Justin grinned and shut the bathroom door behind him. "You know, punta. Piece. Girls."
"Oh, that," Daryl replied. Sex was, oddly enough, the last thing on his mind until Justin mentioned it. Lately his member had become so shriveled with cocaine use as to become almost useless for anything but urination, but the mention of girls made him twitch a little. Now, the prospect added a rosy glow to his plans. And Justin would only get in the way. Sorry, kiddo . . . If you tag along, there'd be no chance in hell. No way.
Justin said, "Can I—"
"No!"
"—go with you?"
Daryl finished drying his hair and went into the bedroom. Justin followed him, and Daryl continued to ignore him as he rummaged around for some jeans. He found some 501's that were mostly clean and slid them on.
"Why not?"
Daryl frowned. "Sorry, you're on your own. You shouldn't have any trouble scoring. Hell, you're almost as big as I am. And it's Monday night. Nothing's going on Monday night."
"Monday?" Justin looked like he was about to laugh. "Monday was yesterday, you dolt! You don't remember anything, do you?"
Daryl fixed what he hoped was a hard, cold look on his brother, but in the past several months this had become next to impossible. How can you stare down someone who's taller than you?
"You passed out on the stairs. Good thing I carried you in here. Dad would've shit if he saw you."
He's just screwing with my head, Daryl thought, glancing over at his clock. It read five P.M. About the time it should.
"You slept all night and day," Justin insisted. "Mom went out. Dad went to work this morning and hasn't been around since."
"Tuesday," Daryl said distantly. "It's fucking Tuesday. I'm still going out. Alone."
Justin frowned, but even at his advanced age it still looked like a pout. "Okay, then, how 'bout—"
"No!"
"—turning me on to some pot?"
This question, too, took him by surprise. Suddenly Daryl's little brother had grown up overnight, while he wasn't looking. Little brother had no more of the baby fat, was now lean and wiry as a whippet, with a washboard stomach starting to form. Only yesterday, it seemed, they were staying up all night playing D&D, drinking Pepsi, no drugs, not even weak beer.
That was only a year, or a few years, ago. When's the last time we played D&D anyway?
And now, Justin wanted some of the action Daryl had learned to take for granted.
"You're too young to be doing that stuff," Daryl said uncomfortably, searching the floor for a shirt. He found a black KMFDM shirt he'd whacked the sleeves off of, and slid it on.
His brother was staring at him.
" 'Too young?' Oh, gimme a break."
"You're only fifteen!" Daryl said, debating whether or not to tuck the shirt in.
Justin looked hurt. "No, brother. I'm sixteen. I turned sixteen last week."
Daryl looked away. "Oh. Guess I forgot. Well, still, you're too young."
Justin started pacing. "Oh, come on! Why don't you ever turn me on to some pot or something? My friends can get their stuff from their brothers!"
They were getting loud, and Daryl held a finger up to his lips. "Shut the fuck up!" he whispered. "Dad doesn't need to hear this conversation."
"Dad isn't here, and if he was, he wouldn't give a fuck. You know that! That's why he didn't go get you from the Wintons' yesterday."
Daryl stared at a bare patch of carpet as his body surrendered to a cold shiver. Oh, yeah. Steve's. The cops. Sammi. Steve, the girls, the others . . .
The entire grisly scene surfaced from the fog of semiwakened mind, focused, and presented itself with morbid clarity.
He had almost forgotten the waking nightmare at the Wintons', and he wondered if he would have remembered it if Justin hadn't said anything.
"You know about that?" Daryl demanded.
Justin laughed. "Who doesn't? You know Mikey. His brother died over there last night, and I knew Colm, the one they took to Parkland. He didn't make it, by the way."
"Colm. Oh, Colm. Christ, I thought he was already dead."
"Yeah, well, word's gotten all around. What was it, some bad coke or something?"
"I don't know." I'm alive because I didn't find out.
"You didn't do any of it, did you?"
He didn't want to go into detail about how he'd gone and passed out in the backyard in his skivvies. That would present an uncool image. By the same token, he didn't want to become his brother's dealer.
Hypocrisy. Isn't like me.
Seeing his little brother on drugs felt wrong, wrong, wrong. He was suddenly grateful he hadn't taken Justin along to the party. His little brother would have probably died along with the rest of them.
"Forget it," Daryl said. "You're too young to be fooling around with that stuff. Any stuff. You can't handle it."
Justin sulked off to his room, slammed his door, and turned the stereo up as high as it would go. Somehow, I Robot turned up didn't have the same violent effect of, say, Nine Inch Nails, Daryl thought as he started down the stairs.
A blast of humid, Texas heat greeted him outside, and Daryl soon discovered his 'Vette was now an 'Oven. The black seats burned through his jeans, toasting his backside and exposed shoulders, but once he got the car started and the aircon going, the temperature began to drop. He slapped a Ministry CD in the player and put the car in reverse.
Daryl loved his 1994 Chevy Corvette. For him, this was the only car to drive. Dad had a Corvette when he was in college, and in a drunken stupor had gone down and bought this one for his son and paid for it with a cashier's check. The gesture struck Daryl dumb. Dad had never bought him something so lavish before, but he was not going to argue. But when Dad came to after the blackout, he had forgotten about buying it himself and
accused his son of stealing it, then of selling drugs for it; it wasn't until Daryl persuaded him to call the dealership that he realized that he had indeed bought the car, lock, stock and barrel.
Dad threw his arms up and said, "What the hell, you might as well enjoy it. Since I've made such an ass of myself, I'll even get the tags for it."
He bought the tags, but not the insurance. Normally the tag agency wouldn't issue the tags without insurance verification, but with the hundred-dollar bribe, the criteria became unimportant. Nevertheless, Daryl knew he would need insurance, and other things like gas and maintenance, and started looking for ways to make money. Big money, quick money. Meanwhile, he drove the car around uninsured. He had no other choice.
It was a perfect car, except for the goddamned dent the Mustang put in it back at the Winton mansion.
The owner deserved to die, Daryl seethed with satisfaction, feeling little else.
His coke stash was gone. He used up the last of his crack at Steve's party, and that was not one, but two nights ago. His palms, formerly dry, began to sweat, making the steering wheel slippery.
Was I supposed to pick something up today? he thought in a panic. He didn't remember. Seemed like there was something important to do today, but he had no idea what.
He drove for fifteen minutes before he remembered.
Now I know. I'm supposed to go over to one of the safe houses to talk to Presto. He's supposed to line me up with some product to deal.
It was three in the afternoon, and he had to meet him at four. He wiped sweat off his forehead as he changed lanes, hopped the expressway for Presto's spare apartment.
Daryl had sold small amounts of coke and crack for Presto at school; lately the demand had swung more toward crack, which was cheaper and smaller and easier to get rid of in a hurry. But it never amounted to a whole lot of money, just enough to keep him supplied with his own stash. Since school was over, his number-one market, impulse purchases in the hallways, was gone. He had been hoping to reestablish his clientele at the party, being the birthday boy and all, but the evening had gone horribly wrong. He didn't want to work for some of the other dealers, and wasn't "big" enough to try to move in on someone else's turf without it being a suicide mission, so he'd stuck to Presto, hoping something would come through. Perhaps something had; he was on his way to find out.
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