by james
“Barf out! Jeez, look how late it’s getting! The sun’s actually gone down. God, how long have we been doing this?”
“Since supper. Stop complaining, we’re almost done.”
“Well, I’d like to see you make me,” she said pertly.
“Done and done. If you’re quite—” He paused suddenly. Was that a whiff of Pack? It sure was. Hmm, two in one week. It wasn’t often he ran into one a year. That was interesting. Now what to do about it?
“Dick, I swear to fucking God, if you don’t stop bitching I’m going to pull out your eyeballs and shove them down your pants.” The voice was strident, loud, and female.
“That could be fun,” a low-pitched male voice he didn’t recognize said cheerfully. “And who’s bitching? I just got up. What are we doing here? I didn’t know you liked the Gap, m’dear.”
“I fucking well hate it and you damn know it. But they’re having a sale and I can stock up. I fucking hate shopping!”
“A woman after my own heart,” Crescent muttered, holding up a sleeveless sweater. It was touching her, so he could see it was the color of mucous. Everything else was the usual gray blur…but that scent…he knew that scent…
Drake moved to get a closer look. It couldn’t be. And with a man? No. It had been too many years; he was mistaken. Still, no one else he knew packed that many ‘fucks’ into everyday language.
He stepped around the stack of red miniskirts, nostrils flared. Yes. It was she. “Janet Lupo?”
He heard her drop the pile of clothing, and could smell her shock. Despite her completely flabbergasted expression, he could tell by her scent that she was looking good—great, in fact. Very healthy, with a vitality about her that had been lacking in the girl he’d once known.
Interestingly, he had no sense of the man with her except as a bundle of formidable power. No real scent at all, but tall. Very strange.
“Fuck a duck,” Janet said.
“Hello, Janet. It’s nice to—”
Drake had an impression of blurred motion, and then he went sailing through the window front and bounced onto the cobblestones. Broken glass rained down everywhere.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Crescent worked very hard on not shrieking. It wasn’t easy. There they’d been, minding their own business, when this bitch came out of nowhere and threw Drake through a window—through the damn window!—and now the two of them were rolling in the street like a couple of alley cats—or wolves, probably; wolves would be more accurate, and the place was emptying pretty quick as the stampede started, and Drake was down, was on his back, and—
“Get off!” Crescent leapt forward, but a brick fell on her shoulder and yanked her back.
“I wouldn’t,” the blonde hottie said mildly. He was a yummy one, all right, and towered over her almost as much as Drake did. Skinny drink of water, though. She observed that the brick was his hand. Strong drink of water, too. “I think it’s a family thing. Better let them—ow.”
She’d never hit anyone in the face before, and was disappointed. Blondie just sort of shook it off and rubbed his jaw. “Now don’t you start. There’s only one woman permitted to smack me around, and she’s currently rolling in a mud puddle with your friend.”
Show him your necklace.
Obeying the inner voice that was never, ever wrong—but which didn’t speak up nearly often enough—she fumbled for one of the three necklaces around her neck, broke the chain, and thrust it at him. To her amazement, he stumbled backward and threw a hand over his face. Just like in the movies!
“Now you’re just being mean,” he said reprovingly, groping for her. “Put that cross away before you hurt someone. Like me!”
She ignored him, turned her back, stuffed the cross in her pocket, grabbed the cow around the waist, and pulled. “Get off,” she huffed. Grabbing her lover’s attacker was not unlike trying to stop an army tank—the woman absolutely did not budge. But she shrugged—nearly dislodging Crescent—and punched Drake
in the eye for good measure.
“Your monkey’s bothering me,” she told him, and punched him again.
“Crescent, don’t,” Drake said sharply. There was a rill of blood trickling down his chin, but other than that he looked unharmed. Anybody else would be spurting blood from about six different arteries after sailing through a plate glass window—thank goodness for werewolf constitution! “Get back. Get out of the way. Don’t worry about me.”
“Yeah, short stuff.” Bam! Another punch. “He’ll be just fine. Why don’t you go get a Frappuccino?”
She ignored them, and stubbornly tugged again.
“Crescent, get away from here. In a minute I’m going to forget to be a gentlemen—Goddammit, Janet, if you hit my jaw again I’ll put you over my knee!”
“It’s a date, gorgeous.”
“Oh no you don’t!” Crescent tried a new grip and pulled harder. “Nobody’s getting spanked but me.”
“Really?” Hottie said from behind her.
“I said get off him!” She suddenly felt her forearm clutched in an unbelievably strong grip, and then she was sailing over the woman’s head, only to hit the sidewalk ass-first. The shock went all the way up her spine and she yelped.
“Unwise,” Drake said, shrugging out of his coat.
“Oh, please. Nothing personal, Blind Man’s Bluff, but you’re fucked. Can’t have anybody ratting me out to Mikey Boss Man, so sorry, sit still and die now,
okay?”
“I’ll pass. And I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Really, Janet. Can’t you two solve this a little more amicably than
introducing death into the equation?”
“Pipe down, Dick, no one hit your buzzer.”
Crescent bounced up from the pavement. All three of them looked surprised to see her still in the game. “I said,” she growled, “keep your hands off my man, bitch!” Then she punched the cow in the jaw.
This was infinitely more gratifying than when she’d hit El Hottie. The woman rolled away from Drake like a bowling ball and slammed up against the Gap’s front door, cupping her hands beneath her chin to catch the blood, and Crescent felt the shock of the blow race all the way up to her shoulder.
The woman spit a tooth into her palm. “Hey, that actually hurt, you little cunt!”
“Now that’s interesting,” El Hottie said approvingly. He was the most detached man she’d ever met. What a weirdo! “You don’t smell like a meateater.”
“Crescent!” Drake was utterly shocked. It was almost worth getting jumped, just to see the look on his face. “How did you manage that?”
“Do we have to talk about it now? Or do I have to keep kicking the shit out of what’s-her-cow?”
“Hey, hey,” what’s-her-cow said warningly. “Watch the language.”
“You have a problem with cow? You put your hands on him again, I’ll kick your ass up so high people will think you have a second head. Cow.”
“Says the midget.” But the woman’s lips were twitching—like Drake’s did when he was amused, and trying not to show it.
“You know what they say. All cow and no cow makes cow a cow-cow.”
The woman reddened…then laughed reluctantly.
“For heaven’s sake, Janet,” Drake was saying, limping over to her and helping her out of the dirt. “What’s the problem? I haven’t seen you in—what? Fifteen years? And you attack me?”
“I don’t suppose we could talk about this over a drink,” Hottie commented. He grinned, and Crescent nearly screamed. He had about a thousand teeth, and they all looked very sharp. “So to speak.”
* * * * *
“—so now we’re sort of…uh…in love and stuff. And I’m not going back,” Janet added defiantly.
“You don’t have to sell me on the advantages of going rogue,” Drake said.
“What, so, you’d get in trouble with your boss? The—what d’you call him? Pack Leader?” Crescent dumped a third packet of sugar in
to her coffee. “What’s he care?”
“He probably wouldn’t,” Janet replied after a long pause. “But it’s not worth it to me. The risk, I mean. He could order me to stay on the Cape and I—I would have to obey, or disobey.”
They were sitting in the corner of the Starbuck’s on Park Street, speaking in low voices. Although Crescent wasn’t sure why they bothered. This was Boston, after all. Nobody gave a shit.
“Well, you don’t have to worry about me. You’re only the second Pack member I’ve run into in the last year,” Drake said. “And even if I were to run into Michael—which isn’t likely—I certainly wouldn’t mention you.”
“Well, thanks. I guess I shouldn’t have… Uh.” Janet coughed. “You know. Kicked the shit out of you without asking questions first.”
“That’s all right,” he said kindly, ignoring Crescent and Richard’s snickers.
“You might think about moving,” Crescent suggested. “If your boss and all his lackey werewolves live on the Cape. I mean, you’re only ninety miles away. If you lived in—I dunno, Argentina? That would be better.”
“Our home is here,” Janet said stubbornly. “Besides, we’re all over the world. Might as well stake out a small claim and defend it here as well as anywhere else.”
Crescent noticed the hottie—Richard—hadn’t touched his frozen coffee. “Aren’t you thirsty?”
“Yes.”
“Well, why aren’t you—”
“So what’s your story, blondie?” Janet asked. “Getting smacked by you was like getting smacked by a two-by-four. What do you have for bone marrow, steel ball bearings?”
Crescent blinked at the interruption. “Well, I think I—”
“—might be part fey.” Drake finished for her.
Richard’s eyebrows arched. “Really? I thought your kind died out years ago.”
“It’s fairy, not fey, and most of us have—at least, I’ve never been able to find anybody else like me. And Drake, how the hell did you know that? I never got around to telling you!”
“I guessed yesterday,” he explained, “and when you smacked Janet I knew for sure.”
“Whoa, back up.” Janet put her palms out like a traffic cop. “You’re a fairy?
Like Tinkerbelle? With wings and shit?”
“Do you see any wings?” she snapped.
“Jeez, nobody told me fairies had such rotten tempers,” Janet muttered.
“She’s just mad because I figured it out,” Drake said with annoying
smugness. “She was saving it for a surprise.”
“You’re so insufferable!”
“Yes.”
“It runs in the family,” Janet added with a grin. “The men especially. So
annoying.”
“Oh, yes,” Richard said. “Male werewolves are the annoying ones.”
“You shut up. Listen, I always heard fairies were these little delicate things.
You hit like a bulldozer. I’m gonna have to wait for that tooth to grow back, which sucks.”
“Dense bones,” Drake said.
“Difficult to break,” Richard added. “I ran into one of your kind about seventy years ago, and he nearly killed me. He was quite old even then, dear, so don’t get your hopes up. I’m sure he’s dust by now.”
“Oh,” Crescent said faintly.
“Don’t sound so disappointed. He was a nasty old man.”
“This explains your fixation with flying,” Drake said, thinking out loud.
“Dense bones, and she can fly?” Janet snorted into her Caramel Mocha Frappucchino. “Yeah, that makes sense.”
“You ever see an airplane take off?” Crescent asked. “You look at it and wonder how something that heavy can ever get off the earth…and then it goes…and you’re left on the ground.”
“Well, of course you can’t fly with all those accessories.” Whip-quick, Richard flicked his spoon at his whipped cream, and a dollop appeared as if by magic on the end of Janet’s nose. “But you knew that.”
“What?”
“Dammit, Dick! Quit throwing whipped cream on me; you know I hate it.”
“What?” Crescent nearly yelled.
Richard looked startled. “All your piercings. You probably set off metal
detectors in airports. And of course your kind can’t tolerate certain metals.”
Drake’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head. Crescent knew exactly how he felt. How had she never thought of this before?
“What are you guys talking about?” Janet had finally gotten the last of the
whipped cream off her nose. “Drake, you look like you just crapped your pants.”
“I—um—I want to fly, but I can’t. But I never made the connection—”
“What are you guys talking about?” Janet practically yelled.
“Fairies have a legendary fear of metal, especially iron,” Richard explained.
“In Crescent’s case, I would guess that translates into being unable to get off the—what are you doing?”
Tearing out all her goddamned earrings and rings, that’s what she was doing. Between her ears, nose, and belly button, she had over a dozen.
“I guess we’re done talking,” Janet commented when Crescent stood up so quickly, her chair fell over.
“There’s a back door behind the second coffee machine,” Drake said, “but I’m not sure now is the appropriate—Crescent?”
She ran for the door and it was right where he told her it would be. She was through it in a flash and bounding up one, two, three flights of stairs, and praise all the gods, the door to the roof was propped open and then she was out in the open.
She dove off the roof. At the last moment, she closed her eyes—she’d been disappointed too many times not to feel a twinge of anxiety. She knew she wouldn’t break any bones, but landing hurt, all the same.
Except she wasn’t landing.
She cracked open one eye and saw Janet, Richard, and Drake standing on the roof, looking at her. Except they were upside down.
Correction: she was upside down. In mid-air.
“There we go,” Richard said cheerfully. “Problem solved.”
“Uh.” She could feel the grin split her face. “Can somebody reach my foot? I have no idea how to get down.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Now, it’s none of my business,” Janet began with, for her, heartening tentativeness.
“Oh, here we go.”
“She’s a little young for you, don’t you think?”
“I have to take relationship advice from a woman who hangs out with a dead guy?”
“Figured it out, did you?”
“Took me a while. He doesn’t really have a scent, you know? In fact, he smells more like you than anything else.”
They were back at Drake’s house, and the sun would be up soon. Crescent’s feet hadn’t touched the ground in three hours. Richard was amusing himself by bouncing her off the roof, seeing how high she would go. His personal best was sixteen feet. Drake and Janet were sitting cross-legged near the edge of the roof, watching.
“She’s one of a kind.”
“No shit. But she’s a little—uh—that is to say—you think she’s in it for the long haul?”
Crescent shrieked with joy as Richard bounced her on the balls of her feet
and she shot into the air again.
“I have no idea,” he said.
“It’s just—you know, I didn’t really know what I was missing until Dick
kidnapped me—”
“What?”
“Long story. Anyway, you’re a pretty good guy. I mean, I always liked you.
It’d be nice if you could finally settle down.”
“Why, Janet, I never dreamed this tender side of you existed.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“And it’s kind of you not to mention my grossly debilitating handicap.”
“What? Oh, that. I’m not being nice. I just keep forgetting. I mean, you don�
�t
act like a blind guy.”
“How exactly does a blind guy act?”
“How the hell should I know? So anyway, back to Blondie. You just, like,
saw her and knew? Well, I know you didn’t see her…”
“Actually,” he said suddenly, “I did. See her, I mean. I can.”
“For real? Not just make a picture from how she smells?”
“For real. I can see her perfectly. But only her. Everything else is the same. For example, I know your height and weight from your voice, and how you sound when you walk, but I don’t know what color your eyes are. Hers are beautiful,” he added dreamily.
“Wow. That’s the weirdest shit I ever heard. And I live with a vampire.” Janet rested her chin on her knees for a moment. “I don’t know dick about fairies. Except I remember this story from when I was a kid—you remember Sarah Storyteller? Michael’s grandma?”
“Sure. She used to read to all of us on the grounds, under those trees by the pond.”
“Right. Well, there was this one story—about fairies? They were little and invisible. They’d only appear if you caught them. And if you caught them, they’d grant wishes. So maybe Crescent appeared to you. You know, maybe that’s why you can see her.”
“Or maybe,” he said slowly, “she granted my wish.”
“You wished you could see? Not that I could blame you, you poor handicapped freak of—”
“Oh, quit that. No, I never really minded not seeing, but I always wondered what my mate’s face would look like. What her hair would look like, the color of her eyes…like that.”
“Hum. Well. You can see her. Only her. So…maybe she is in it for the long haul.”
“There’s that tender side again. My, Richard has been quite the good
influence.”
“Oh, shut up. So, what are you going to do?”
He sighed and shifted his weight. “Hope she flies back to me, I suppose.”
“Lame.”
“Mature.”
“I kicked your ass all over Faneuil Hall, you know.”
“Then my girl kicked your ass.”
“Oh, shut up.”
* * * * *
Janet and Richard left, but Crescent refused. He’d tried to explain why she should go, but she wasn’t having it. “What, is this that dumb ‘if-you-love-something-let-it-go-if-it-comes-back-blah-blah-blah’ thing? Because that sucks. You said I could stay as long as I wanted, you welsher.”