by Jim Butcher
Beautifully.
It wasn't perfect performance—a computer can do that. It wasn't a terribly complex bit of music. My fingers didn't suddenly regain their complete dexterity—but the music became alive. My hands moved with a surety and confidence I usually felt only in bursts a few seconds long. I played a second piece, and then a third, and every time my rhythm was on, and I found myself seeing and using new nuances, variations on chords that lent depth and color to the simple pieces I could play—sweet sadness to the minor chords, power to the majors, stresses and resolutions I'd always heard in my head, but could never express in life, It was almost like someone had opened a door in my head, like they were helping me along.
I heard a very, very faint whisper, like an echo of Lash's voice.
Everything I can, dear host.
I played for a while longer, before gently setting aside my guitar.
Then I went to call Father Forthill and tell him to come over, so that he could pick up the blackened denarius as soon as I dug it out of my basement.
I picked up Thomas outside his apartment and tailed him as he crossed town. He took the El over toward the Loop, and hit the sidewalks again. He looked tense, and paler than usual. He'd blown an awful lot of energy killing those ghouls, and I knew he'd have to feed—maybe dangerously—to recover what he'd lost.
I'd called him the day after the battle and tried to talk to him, but he'd remained reticent, remote. I'd told him I was worried about him, after blowing that much energy. He'd hung up on me. He'd cut short two more calls since.
So, being as how I am a smart and sensitive guy who respects his brother's feelings, I was tailing him to find out what the hell he was trying so hard not to talk to me about. This way, I was sparing him all the effort and trouble of telling me about it by finding out all on my own. Like I said, I'm sensitive. And thoughtful. And maybe a little stubborn.
Thomas wasn't being very careful. I would have expected him to move around the city like a long-tailed cat at a rocking chair convention, but he sort of trudged along, fashionable in his dark slacks and loose, deep crimson shirt, his hands in his pockets, his hair hiding his face most of the time.
Even so, he attracted more than a little feminine attention. He was like a walking, talking cologne commercial, except that even silent and standing he was making women look over their shoulders at him, while coyly rearranging their hair.
He finally stalked into the Park Tower, and went into a trendy little boutique-slash-coffee shop calling itself the Coiffure Cup. I checked a clock, and thought about following him in. I could see a few people inside, where a coffee bar backed up to the front window. A couple of fairly pretty girls were getting things set up behind the counter, but I couldn't see any more than that.
I found a spot where I could watch the door and loomed unobtrusively—which is easier than you'd think, even when you're as tall as I am. A couple of women whose hair and nails screamed "beautician" came in later. The boutique opened for business a few minutes after Thomas got there, and immediately began doing a brisk trade. A lot of evidently wealthy, terribly attractive, generally young women started coming and going.
It put me in a quandary. On the one hand, I didn't want anyone to get hurt because my brother had exerted himself so furiously on my behalf. On the other, I didn't particularly care to go in and find my brother lording it over a roomful of worshipful women like some dark god of lust and shadow.
I chewed on my lip for a while, and decided to go on in. If Thomas had… if he had become the kind of monster his family generally did, I owed it to him to try to talk some sense into him. Or pound it in. Whichever.
I pushed open the door to the Coiffure Cup and was immediately, pleasantly assaulted by the aroma of coffee. There was techno music playing, thumping bouncily and mindlessly positive. The front room contained the coffee bar, a few little tables, and a little podium next to a heavy curtain. Even as I came in, one of the young women behind the bar came out to me, gave me a bubbly, caf-feinated smile, and said, "Hi! Do you have an appointment?"
"No," I said, glancing back at the curtains.' "Um, I just need to talk to someone. One second."
"Sir," she said in protest, and tried to hurry into my path. My legs were longer. I gave her a smile and outdistanced her, pushing the curtain aside.
The techno music grew a little louder as I went through. The back room of the boutique smelled the way boutiques always do, of various tonsorial chemicals. A dozen styling stations, all in use, stood six on a side, marching up to a rather large and elaborate station on a little raised platform. At the base of the little platform was a pedicure station, and a young woman with a mud mask, and cucumber slices, and a body posture of blissful relaxation was lounging through a pedicure. On the other side, another young woman was under a dryer, reading a magazine, her expression heavy and relaxed with that postcoiffure glow. On the main chair on the platform, a deluxe number that leaned back to a custom shampoo sink, another young woman lay back with a blissful expression while having her hair washed.
By Thomas.
He was chatting with her amiably as he worked, and she was in the middle of a little laugh when I came in. He leaned down and said something in her ear, and though I couldn't hear the substance of it, it came across in an unmistakable just-us-girls kind of tone, and she laughed again, replying in a similar manner.
Thomas laughed and turned away, practically prancing over to a tray of… styling implements, I supposed. He came back with a towel and, I swear to God, a dozen bobby pins held in his lips. He rinsed her hair and started pinning.
"Sir!" protested the coffee girl, who had followed me into the room.
Everyone stopped and looked at me. Even the woman with the cucumbers over her eyes took one of them off and peered at me.
Thomas froze. His eyes widened to the size of hand mirrors. He swallowed, and the bobby pins fell out of his mouth.
All the women looked back and forth between us, and there was an immediate buzz of whispers and quiet talks.
"You have got to be kidding me," I said.
"O-oh," Thomas said. "Ah-ree."
One of the stylists glanced back and forth between us and said, "Thomas." (She pronounced it Toe-moss.) "Who is your friend?"
Friend. Oy vey. I rubbed at the bridge of my nose with one hand. I was never going to get away from this one. Not if I lived to be five hundred.
Thomas and I sat down at a table over cups of coffee.
"This?" I asked him without preamble. "This is your mysterious job? This is the moneymaking scam?"
"It was cosmetology school first," Thomas said. He spoke in a French accent so thick that it barely qualified as English. "And night work as a security guard in a warehouse where no one else ever showed up, to pay for it."
I rubbed at my nose again. "And then… this ? Here I'm thinking you've created your own batch of personal thralls while running around as a hired killer or something, and… you're washing hair ?"
It was difficult to keep my voice quiet, but I made the effort. There were too many ears in that little place.
Thomas sighed. "Well. Yes. Washing, cutting, styling, dying. I do it all, baby."
"I'll bet." Then it hit me. "That's how you're feeding," I said. "I thought that took…"
"Sex?" Thomas asked. He shook his head. "Intimacy. Trust. And believe me, next to sex, washing and styling a woman's hair is about as intimate as you can get with her."
"You're still feeding on them," I said.
"It isn't the same, Harry. It isn't as dangerous—more like… sipping, I suppose, than taking bites. I can't take very much, or very quickly. But I'm here all day and it…" He shivered. "It adds up." He opened his eyes and met mine. "And there's no chance I'm going to lose control of myself. They're safe." He shrugged a shoulder. "They just enjoy it."
I watched the woman who'd been under the hair dryer come out, smile at Thomas, and pick up a cup of coffee on the way out. She looked… well, radiant, really. Confident.
She looked like she felt sexy and beautiful, and it was quite pleasant to watch her move while she did.
Thomas watched her go with what I recognized as his look of quiet possession and pride. "They enjoy it a lot." He gave me one of his brief, swift grins. "I imagine there's a lot of husbands and boyfriends enjoying it, too."
"But they're addicted to it, I'd imagine."
He shrugged again. "Some, maybe. I try to spread myself around as much as I can. It isn't a perfect solution—"
"But it's the one you've got," I said. I frowned. "What happens when you try to wash somebody's hair and it turns out that they're in love? Protected?"
"True love isn't as common as you'd think," Thomas said. "Especially among people rich enough to afford me and superficial enough to think that it is money well spent."
"But when they do show?" I asked.
"That's why I've got all the hired help, man. I know what I'm doing."
I shook my head. "All this time and…" I snorted and sipped at some coffee. It was amazing. Smooth and rich and just sweet enough, and it probably cost more than a whole fast-food meal. "They all think I'm your lover, don't they."
"This is a trendy, upper-class boutique, Harry. No one expects a man with a place like this to be straight."
"Uh-huh. And the accent, Toe-moss?"
He smiled. "No one would pay that much money to an American stylist. Please." He shrugged. "It's superficial and silly, but true." He glanced around, suddenly self-conscious. His voice lowered, and his accent dropped. "Look. I know it's a lot to ask…"
It was an effort not to laugh at him, but I managed to give him a hard look, sigh, and say, "Your secret is safe with me."
He looked relieved. "Merci ."
"Hey," I said. "Can you stop by my place tonight after work? I'm putting something together that might help people if someone else starts something like those White Court bozos just tried. I thought maybe you'd want to be in on it."
"Um, yeah. Yeah, we can talk about it."
I sipped more coffee. "Maybe Justine could help, too. Might be a way to get her out, if you want to do it."
"Are you kidding?" Thomas asked. "She's been working for a year to get closer to Lara."
I blinked up at him. "Hell's bells, I thought she was acting weird," I said. "She came on all zonked out, like the mindless party girl, but she dropped it a couple of times, where I could see. I just put it down to, well. Weirdness."
He shook his head. "She's been getting information to me. Nothing huge, so far."
"Does Lara know about her?"
Thomas shook his head. "She hasn't tipped to it yet. Justine is, as far as Lara is concerned, still one more helpless little doe." He glanced up. "I talked it over with her. She wants to stay. She's Lara's assistant, most of the time."
I exhaled slowly. Holy crap. If Justine stayed in place, and was willing to report on what she knew… intelligence gathered at that level could turn the entire course of the war—because even if the White Court's peace proposal went through, it just meant a shift in focus and strategy. The vamps weren't about to let up.
"Dangerous," I said quietly.
"She wants to do it," he said.
I shook my head. "I take it you've been in touch with Lara?"
"Of course," Thomas said. "Given my recent heroism"—his voice turned wry—"in defense of the White King, I am now in favor in the Court. The prodigal son has been welcomed home with open arms."
"Really?"
"Well," Thomas amended, "with reluctant, irritated arms, anyway. Lara's miffed about the Deeps."
"Guess the bombs weren't good for them."
Thomas's teeth showed. "The whole place just collapsed in on itself. There's a huge hole in the ground, the plumbing at the manor got torn up, and the foundation cracked. It's going to cost a fortune to fix it."
"Poor Lara," I said. "No more convenient corpse-disposal facilities."
He laughed. "It's nice to see her exasperated. She's usually so self-assured."
"I have a gift."
He nodded. "You do." We sat quietly for a few minutes.
"Thomas," I said, finally, gesturing at the room. "Why didn't your tell me about this?"
He shrugged and looked down. "At first? Because it was humiliating. I mean… working nights to put myself through cosmetology school? Starting my own place and posing as…" He waved a hand down at himself. "I thought… I don't know. At first I thought you'd disapprove or… laugh at me or something."
I kept a straight face. "No. Never."
"And after that… well. I'd been keeping secrets. I didn't want you to think I didn't trust you."
I snorted. "In other words you didn't trust me. To understand."
His cheeks turned very slightly pink and he looked down. "Um. I guess so, yeah. Sorry."
"Don't worry about it."
He closed his eyes and nodded and said, "Thanks, Harry."
I put a hand on his shoulder for a second, then dropped it again. Nothing else needed to be said.
Thomas gave me a suspicious look. "Now you're going to laugh at me."
"I can wait until you've turned your back, if you like."
He grinned at me again. "It's all right. I sort of stopped caring about it after I got fed steady for a few weeks straight. Feels too nice not to be starving again. Laugh all you want."
I looked around the place for a minute more. The coffee girls were having a private conversation, evidently discussing us, if all the covert glances and quiet little smiles were any indication.
I couldn't help it. I burst out laughing, and it felt good.
Notes
FB2 document info
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