Divine Misdemeanors_A Novel

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  The Fear Dearg whirled and jumped at the reporters with a loud “Hah!” They ran, some falling down and others trampling them underfoot in a mad panic to be away from him. The ones on the ground got up and raced after the others.

  O’Brian said, “It’s not strictly legal to use magic on the press.”

  The Fear Dearg cocked his head to one side like a bird that has spied a worm. The look made O’Brian swallow a little harder, but with my shields around her she held her ground. “And how would you have moved them, girlie?”

  “Officer O’Brian,” she said.

  He grinned at her, and I felt her flinch, but she didn’t move back. It earned her a point for bravery, but I wasn’t certain that taunting him after he’d shown such obvious sexual interest in her during Bittersweet’s questioning was a good idea. Sometimes a little fear is a wise thing.

  He started to invade her personal space, and I stepped between them. “What do you want, Fear Dearg? I appreciate the help, I do, but you did not do it out of the goodness of your heart.”

  He leered at O’Brian, then turned the leer to me. It didn’t bother me. “I have no goodness in my heart, my queen, only evil.”

  “No one is only evil,” I said.

  The leer grew until his face was a mask of evil intent, but it was the kind of evil they put on Halloween masks. “You’re too young to understand what I am.”

  “I know what evil is,” I said, “and it does not come with a cartoon mask and a leer. Evil comes in the face of those who are supposed to love and care for you, but they don’t. Evil comes with a slap, or a hand holding you underwater until you can’t breathe, and all the time her face is serene, not angry, not mad, because she believes that she has the right.”

  His evil face began to fold down into something more serious. He gazed up at me, and said, “Rumors say you endured much abuse at the hands of your sidhe relatives.”

  Doyle turned to the police officers. “Give us some privacy, please?”

  Wright and O’Brian exchanged glances, then Wright shrugged. “We were just told to get you safely into your car, so fine, we’ll wait over here.”

  O’Brian tried to protest, but her partner insisted. They argued quietly as they gave us our privacy.

  Doyle’s hand on my arm tightened, and Frost moved closer. They were telling me silently not to share stories out of court, but the queen had never cared that I talked about some things. “And their friends, never forget their friends, I never could,” I said.

  He looked from Frost to Doyle, and asked, “Did they torment you before they became your lovers?”

  I shook my head. “No, I have taken no lover who ever raised a hand to me.”

  “You have cleared out the Unseelie sithen. They’ve all come to L.A. with you. Who is left, who tormented you so?”

  “I’ve taken only the guards away, not the nobles,” I said.

  “But all guards are noble among the sidhe, or they are not worthy of guarding a queen, or a king.”

  I shrugged. “I have called to me that which is mine.”

  He went to his knees again, but closer to my feet, so that I had to fight the urge to back up a step. Earlier I would have, but something about this moment made me want to be the queen that the Fear Dearg needed. Doyle seemed to feel me think it, because he put a hand on my back as if to help me not give ground. Frost simply moved to my other side, so that he almost touched me, but he was keeping his hands free for weapons, just in case. In public they tried to keep one of them free for that, though sometimes it was hard to comfort me and guard me at the same time.

  “You have not called the Fear Dearg, Queen Meredith.”

  “I did not know they were mine to call.”

  “We were cursed and our women destroyed so we would cease to be a people. No matter how long-lived we are, the Fear Dearg are a dying race.”

  “I have never heard even a hint that the Fear Dearg have women, or of a curse.”

  He turned those black, uptilted eyes to Doyle at my side. “Ask that one if I speak the truth.”

  I looked at Doyle. He simply nodded.

  “We and the Red Caps almost beat the sidhe. We were two proud races, and we existed on bloodshed. The sidhe came to help the humans, to save them.” His voice was bitter.

  “You would have killed every man, woman, and child on the isle,” Doyle said.

  “Mayhap we would have,” he said, “but it was our right to do it. They were our worshippers before they were yours, sidhe.”

  “And what is a god if he destroys all those who worship him, Fear Dearg?”

  “What is a god who has lost all his followers, Nudons?”

  “I am no god, nor was I ever.”

  “But we all thought we were, didn’t we, Darkness?” He gave that disturbing chuckle again.

  Doyle nodded, his hand on my back tensing. “We thought many things that turned out not to be true.”

  “Ay, that we did, Darkness.” The Fear Dearg sounded sad.

  “I will tell you truth, Fear Dearg. I had forgotten you and your people and what happened so long ago.”

  He looked up at Doyle. “Oh, ay, the sidhe do so many things that they simply forget. They wash their hands not in water, or even blood, but forgetfulness and time.”

  “Meredith cannot do what you want.”

  “She is crowned queen of the sluagh, and for a brief moment queen of the Unseelie. Crowned by faerie and Goddess, that’s what you made us wait for, Darkness. You and your people, we were cursed to be nameless, childless, homeless, until a queen crowned rightly by Goddesses and faerie itself granted us a name again.” He looked up at me. “It was a way for them to curse us forever without sounding like it was forever. It was a way to torment us. We used to come before every new queen and ask for our names back, and they all refused.”

  “They remembered what you were, Fear Dearg,” Doyle said.

  The Fear Dearg turned to Frost. “And you, Killing Frost, why so silent? Do you have no opinions but the ones that Darkness gives you? That’s the rumor, you’re his sub.”

  I wasn’t entirely sure that Frost would understand that last part, but he knew he was being taunted. “I do not remember the Fear Dearg’s fate. I woke to winter, and your people were gone.”

  “That’s right, that’s right, once you were but wee Jackie Frost, just one more retainer in the court of the Winter Queen.” He did that head cock to one side again. “How did you turn into a sidhe, Frost? How did you grow in power while all the rest of us faded?”

  “People believe in me. I am Jack Frost. They talk, they write books and stories, and children look out their window and see the frost on their windows and think I did it.” Frost took a step toward the smaller kneeling man. “And what do the human children say of you, Fear Dearg? You are barely a whisper in the human’s minds these days, all forgotten.”

  The Fear Dearg gave him a look that was frightening, for real, because it held such hate. “They remember us, Jackie, they remember us. We live in their memories and in their hearts. They are still what we made of them.”

  “Lies will not help you, only truth,” Doyle said.

  “It’s not lies, Darkness, go into any theater and watch their slasher flicks. Their serial killers, their wars, the slaughter on the evening news when a man kills his whole family so they won’t know he’s lost his job, or the woman who drowns her children so she can have another man. Oh, no, Darkness, humans remember us. We were the voices in the blackest night of the human soul, and what we planted there still lives. The Red Caps gave them war, but the Fear Dearg gave them pain and torment. They are still our children, Darkness, make no mistake about that.”

  “And we gave them music, stories, art, and beauty,” Doyle said.

  “You are Unseelie sidhe; you gave them slaughter, too.”

  “We gave them both,” Doyle said. “You hated us because we offered more than just blood, death, and fear. No Red Cap, no Fear Dearg ever wrote a poem, painted a picture, or designed s
omething new and fresh. You have no ability to create, only to destroy, Fear Dearg.”

  He nodded. “I have spent centuries, more centuries than most acknowledge, learning the lesson you set us, Darkness.”

  “And what lesson have you learned?” I asked. My voice was soft, as if I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer.

  “That people are real. That the humans aren’t just for our pleasure and slaughter, and that they are a people, too.” He glared up at Doyle. “But the Fear Dearg survived long enough to see the mighty fall as we fell. We watched the sidhe diminish in power and glory, and the few of us left rejoiced.”

  “Yet you bend knee to us again,” Doyle said.

  He shook his head. “I bend knee to the queen of the sluagh, not of the Unseelie, or the Seelie Court. I bend knee to Queen Meredith, and if King Sholto were here I would acknowledge him. He has kept the faith with his other side.”

  “Sholto’s tentacles are only a tattoo unless he calls them forth. He looks as sidhe as any of us standing here,” Doyle said.

  “And if I want a fair young maiden, don’t I use my glamour to make myself look a bit better?”

  “It’s illegal to use magic to trick someone into bed,” O’Brian said.

  I started. I hadn’t realized that the police had moved back into hearing range.

  The Fear Dearg glared at her. “And do you wear makeup on your dates, Officer? Do you put on a pretty dress?”

  She didn’t answer him.

  “But there’s no makeup that will cover this.” He motioned at his own face. “There’s no suit to hide my body. It’s magic or nothing for me. I could make you understand what it’s like to be twisted in the eyes of the other humans.”

  “You will not harm her,” Doyle said.

  “Ah, the great sidhe speaks and we all must listen.”

  “You have learned nothing, Fear Dearg,” Doyle said.

  “You did just threaten to use magic to deform O’Brian,” I said.

  “No, my magic is all glamour; to deform I’d have to use something more solid.”

  “Do not end their curse, Meredith. They would be a plague on the humans.”

  “Someone explain to me what the curse was, exactly.”

  “I will, in the car,” Doyle said, and he stepped forward, putting me behind him. “Fear Dearg, we might have taken pity on you after so very long, but you have shown in just a few words to a human woman that you are still dangerous, still too evil to be given back your powers.”

  The Fear Dearg reached out to me, past Doyle’s leg. “But give me a name, my queen, I beg you. Give me a name and I can have a life again.”

  “Do not, Meredith, not until you understand what they were and what they might be again.”

  “There are only a handful of us left in the world, Darkness.” His voice was rising. “What harm could we do now?”

  “If you did not need Meredith to free you from the curse, if you did not need her goodwill, the goodwill of some queen of faerie, what would you do to some human woman tonight, Fear Dearg?”

  The Fear Dearg’s eyes held such hate. I actually stepped back behind Doyle, and Frost moved so that I only saw the Fear Dearg between their bodies as I had at the beginning.

  He looked at me between the two of them, and it was a look that made me truly afraid. He got to his feet, a little heavily, as if his knees ached from being on the sidewalk so long. “Not just human women, Darkness, or have you forgotten that once we rivaled your magic, and the sidhe were no more safe than the humans?”

  “I have not forgotten that.” Doyle’s voice held rage. I’d never heard quite that tone in his voice before. It sounded of something more personal.

  “There is no rule to how we get our naming from the queen,” he said. “I have asked nicely, but she would name me to save herself and those babes inside her. You would let her name me to save them.”

  The two men closed ranks and I lost sight of the Fear Dearg. “Do not come near her, Fear Dearg, for it will be your death. And if we hear of any crimes on humans that smack of your work, we will see that you no longer have to mourn your lost greatness, for the dead mourn nothing.”

  “Ah, but how will you tell what is my work and what is the work of humans who carry the spirit of the Fear Dearg in their souls? It is not music and poetry that I see on the news, Darkness.”

  “We are leaving,” Doyle said. We said good-bye to Wright and O’Brian, and the men got me into the truck. We started the engine but didn’t leave until O’Brian and Wright were lost in the mass of police down the way. I think none of us wanted to leave O’Brian close to the Fear Dearg.

  It was Alice in her Goth outfit who came out of the Fael and went to the Fear Dearg. She hugged him, and he hugged her back. They went back into the tea shop hand in hand, but he cast a look back over his shoulder as I put the SUV in gear. The look was a challenge, a sort of Stop Me If You Can. They vanished into the shop. I pulled carefully out into the street and the traffic, then said, “What the hell was all that about?”

  “I don’t wish to tell the tale in the car,” Doyle said, with his death grip on the door and the dashboard. “You do not tell tales of the Fear Dearg when you are afraid. It calls them to you, gives them power over you.”

  To that I didn’t know what to say, because I remembered a time when I thought the Queen’s Darkness felt nothing, least of all fear. I knew that Doyle felt all the emotions everyone else felt, but admitting weakness, that he didn’t do often. He’d said the only thing that could have kept me from questioning him on the way to the beach. I used the bluetooth to call ahead to the beach house and the main house to let everyone know that we were fine. That the only ones wounded were the paparazzi. Some days karma balances out instantly.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  MAEVE REED’S BEACH HOUSE SAT ABOVE THE OCEAN, HALF ON THE cliff and half resting on wood and concrete supports designed to stand up to earthquakes, mudslides, and anything else the Southern California climate could throw at the house. It sat in a gated community complete with a uniformed guard and a gatehouse. It was what kept the press from following us. Because they’d found us. It was almost a type of magic how they always found us again, like a dog on a scent. There weren’t as many on the narrow curving road, but enough to stop and look disappointed as we went through the gates.

  Ernie was at the gate. He was an older African American who had once been a soldier, but had been injured badly enough that his army career had gone away. He would never tell me what the injury had been, and I knew enough human culture not to ask outright.

  He frowned at the cars parked out of reach of the gate. “I’ll call the police so we’ll have the trespassing on record.”

  “They stay away from the gate when you’re on duty, Ernie,” I said.

  He smiled at me. “Thank you, Princess. I do my best.” He tipped an imaginary hat at Doyle and Frost, and said, “Gentlemen.”

  They nodded back and away we went. If the beach house hadn’t been behind a gate, we’d have been at the mercy of the media, and after watching the windows crack at Matilda’s deli, I didn’t think that would be a good idea tonight. It would have been nice to think that the accident would make the paparazzi back off, but it would probably make me bigger news, more of a target. It was ironic, but almost certainly true.

  The car’s phone sounded. Doyle started, and I spoke into the air toward the microphone. “Hello.”

  “Merry, how close to the house are you guys?” Rhys asked.

  “Almost there,” I said.

  He gave a chuckle that sounded tinny because of the bluetooth. “Good, our cook is getting nervous that the food will get cold before you arrive.”

  “Galen?” I made it a question.

  “Yep, he hasn’t even taken anything off the stove, but he’s fretting about that so he won’t fret about you. Barinthus told me you called and shared some excitement. Are you okay?”

  “Fine, but tired,” I said.

  Doyle spoke loudly, �
�We are almost to the turnoff.”

  “The bluetooth only works for the driver,” I said, not for the first time.

  Doyle said, “Why doesn’t it work for everyone in the front seat?”

  “Merry, what did you say?” Rhys asked.

  “Doyle said something.” More quietly to Doyle, I said, “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know what?” Rhys asked.

  “Sorry, still not used to the bluetooth. We’re almost there, Rhys.”

  A huge black raven perched on an ancient fence post by the road. It cawed and flexed its wings. “Tell Cathbodua we’re fine, too.”

  “You see one of her pets?” he asked.

  “Yes.” The raven winged skyward and began to circle the car.

  “She’ll know more about you than I do then,” he said, and sounded a little discouraged.

  “Are you all right? You sound tired,” I said.

  “Fine, like you,” he said, and laughed again, then added, “but I just got here myself. The simple case Jeremy sent me on turned out to be not so simple.”

  “We can talk about it over dinner,” I said.

  “I’d like your opinion, but I think there’s a different agenda for dinner.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Frost leaned up as far as the seat belt would let him, and asked, “Has something else happened? Rhys sounds worried.”

  “Did something else happen while we were gone?” I asked. I was looking for the turnoff to the house. The light was beginning to fade. It wasn’t quite twilight, but it was still a turn I missed if I wasn’t paying attention.

  “Nothing new, Merry. I swear.”

  I braked sharply for the turnoff, which made Doyle grab the car tightly enough that I heard the door frame protest. He was strong enough to tear the door off its hinges. I just hoped he didn’t dent it because of his phobia.