Divine Misdemeanors

Chapter Twenty-nine

Doyle and Frost, with Usna driving, took the Suv, and Usna used glamour to make him appear as me. It had surprised me that he had his driver’s license, but apparently years before I was born he had left faerie to explore the country. When I’d asked why, he’d replied, “Cats are curious.” And I knew just by the look on his face that that was all the answer I would get.

Usna wasn’t good enough at glamour to walk through a crowd. One bump and the illusion would have shattered, which was why he wasn’t going with me. There’d be a crowd where I was going. But we were hoping the more elementary illusion would lure the press from the outer gates, so we could drive off unmolested.

But his partner, Cathbodua, was good enough to go with us. There was a moment when she stood in the middle of the living room in her raven-feather cloak with that shoulder-length hair mingling with the feathers so that she, like Doyle, was dark enough that where one blackness ended and the other began the eye couldn’t sort out. It made her skin seem to almost float against all the darkness.

Then the feathers smoothed out, and she was wearing the long black trench coat that it so often appeared to be. Cathbodua only had to soften her skin from the otherworldly paleness to a more human shade of pale. Most of the women had been so little photographed with me that they wouldn’t even have to change anything but their eyes, hair, and some clothing. Saraid turned her golden hair to a brown-gold and her skin to a sun-kissed tan. Her blue-and-star eyes were simply blue. She was still beautiful, but she could pass for human. Even the fact that she was six feet even and naturally thin didn’t make her stand out here in L.A. the way it would have back in the midwest. There were a thousand tall, gorgeous women here who had started out trying for acting and had had to settle for a day job.

Galen made his short curls a nondescript brown, and changed his eyes to match. He darkened his skin so he looked truly tanned, and he did subtle things to his face and body so that he looked ordinary. You’d seen a laughing, cute guy like him on every beach you’d ever been on. Rhys gave himself back the illusion of his missing eye, and painted both eyes to a good blue, but not too eye-catching. He simply piled his waist-length curls up under his fedora, left his signature trench coat at the beach house, and went in just the suit coat that he’d worn last to work, putting it over jeans and a T-shirt. The jeans were his, but the T-shirt he’d had to borrow. It fit through the shoulders, but lots of it was tucked into the stylishly faded jeans. He slipped back into his boots and he was dressed.

I came out of the bedroom with my hair an auburn that was almost brown. I’d also put it up into a French twist. The deep, chocolate-brown skirt suit was a little short for business, but I was short enough that long just wasn’t good on me. I’d borrowed a holster and gun from Rhys and put them at the small of my back so I would be armed. It still left him a gun, a sword, and a dagger. I had my own folding knife in a thigh holster under the skirt. The knife actually wasn’t just for defense; it was also so there would be some cold steel touching my naked flesh. Steel and iron help against faerie magic, but it’s best if they touch your skin. There were a lot of fey, even sidhe, who couldn’t have done glamour this detailed with cold metal touching their skin. My human and brownie ancestry helped me work magic no matter how much metal and technology surrounded me. The knife was nothing compared to the city itself. Out here by the ocean it was easier for the rest of them, but there were lesser fey who couldn’t do much magic in the heart of any modern city.

The thought made me wonder about Bittersweet and whether Lucy had found her. I pushed the thought aside and checked the mirror one last time to make sure neither gun nor knife showed in the suit. The skirt was lightweight but flouncy, moving with me. I had a lot of skirts that were formfitting enough that even a small weapon showed against the material.

I walked back out into the great room. Galen met me, smiling. “I forgot you make your eyes brown, too.”

“Green eyes are too unusual. Humans remember them.”

He grinned at me, and moved to take me in his arms. I let him, pretty sure what he was going to say. “We should test the glamour and see if touching makes either of us lose our concentration.”

We kissed, and it was a nice, thorough kiss. He drew away and I was staring up into a pair of dark brown eyes set in a face more tan than his would ever be by nature.

I smiled.

It was Rhys who said, “Come on you two, we all know our glamour holds up. Amatheon and Adair checked in. The press took the bait with Doyle and Frost, so we can go do some work.” We followed him out the door, dropping each other’s hands as we walked outside. I trusted the other guards that the main force of the press had gone away, but if we hung all over each other like lovers, no amount of glamour would keep them from snapping pictures, and not all glamour holds up to cameras. We don’t know why, but even with the best of us sometimes a picture will reveal the truth when the naked eye will not.

Sholto had gone ahead of us all.

“All doors are in place.”

“So you’ll just appear,” Galen said.

“Yes.”

“How do you make certain someone isn’t in the doorway when you appear.”

“I can feel if it’s empty,” he said.

“Nifty.”

“I didn’t know you could do doorways,” I said.

“Its a power that has returned since we were crowned.”

“Don’t tell Barinthus,” Galen said.

“I will not.” He’d been solemn when he said it. “But I will scout the area and if reporters seem aware you are on your way; tipped off, I believe they say.”

“They do,” I said with a smile.

“Then I will call if they have been tipped off.” He’d gone with his blond hair looking short, his golden eyes as brown as Galen’s and mine. Sholto even made his face less handsome so he wouldn’t even attract attention as a too handsome human.

Rhys drove since it was his car. We put Saraid in the front with him, and the rest of us scattered in the back. We could actually see the distant flash of police lights when Rhys pulled over into a small parking lot. Julian or Jordan Hart leaned against one of the company cars. It wasn’t until he turned and gave me that smile of his that I knew it was Julian and not his twin brother. They both had short, rich brown hair cut so it was short on the sides, but a little longer on top, where it was gelled into small spikes. But Jordan didn’t have such a careless, devil-may-care smile. He had a good smile. They both did. They’d made enough money from modeling to first start their own detective agency and then to buy into the Grey Detective Agency. They were both six feet of tanned and easy handsome, but Julian was lighter, more of a tease. Though oddly it was the teasing brother who had found a monogamous relationship and done happily so for more than five years. Serious brother Jordan was still quite the ladies’ man, though even in his single days Julian had never been a ladies’ man. A gentleman’s man, if that was a phrase, would have been more accurate.

He was wearing small-framed glasses with yellow-tinted glass that complemented his shades of brown and tan clothes. He came to me laughing. “You should have called, dear. I’d have worn another color so we wouldn’t have matched.”

I smiled and gave my cheek for a kiss, which I got and returned. His face still held that edge of laughter, but his eyes behind their almost-silly tinted glasses were very serious.

“You haven’t been to the crime scene yet, have you?” I asked.

“No,” he said, his voice as serious as his eyes, but if anyone was watching, his face still laughed and was pleasant. “But Jordan has.”

Now I understood why his eyes were already a little grim. The twin brothers could let each other see what they were looking at, if they wanted to. When they’d been little they’d had no control over it, but they’d gone to the afterschool psychic programs along with all the other little gifted children and now they only shared if they chose. Whatever Julian’s brother had shown him was bad enough to take the shine from his eyes.

He looked past me to the men with me, and the smile climbed back up into his eyes. There were other human wizards who would have had to ask before being certain who was hiding behind the glamour, but Julian really was that good, and so was his brother. So he went to Galen and exchanged a cheek kiss like he had with me and a handshake with Rhys. The fact that he knew who to kiss and who to just shake hands with said that the disguises weren’t really fooling him. That was not good, since some police were now wizards, but most didn’t specialize in “seeing” the truth.

Julian hesitated at the women, which meant that it wasn’t what they looked like to his physical eyes that let him know who to kiss. It was something more mystical than that. He didn’t know the female guards well at all, so he shook their hands. He was actually more careful of the women than the men.

Of course, even Julian hadn’t quite been his exuberant self since more than half of Kane and Hart’s detective agency had gotten eaten by a very big, bad piece of magical beastie called the Nameless. We—my men and I—had eventually entrapped it, but Kane and Hart had been ground down to only four employees, which was why the Grey Detective Agency was now the Grey and Hart Detective Agency. Both agencies had been going after the same niche market, so it made sense to join forces, and maybe Julian and Jordan Hart just felt that mixing their human magic with our not-so-human magic might be healthier for their remaining employees.

Adam Kane, Julian’s longtime boyfriend, had lost his younger brother Ethan in the fight. I think Adam would have agreed to anything in those first few weeks. Even now Adam was doing mostly office work, seeing clients, but not much fieldwork. I wasn’t sure whether that was still grief, or whether Julian couldn’t stand the thought of endangering him. Eventually, if it had to be asked, Jeremy would do it, because at the office he was the boss. It was actually nice that I wasn’t the boss every damn where.

“It’s actually quicker to walk from here,” Julian said. His hands went to his jacket pocket and started to lift a pack of cigarettes out, then he hesitated. “Do you mind if I smoke as we walk?”

“I didn’t know you smoked,” I said.

He gave a brilliant smile, flashing the perfect white teeth that he’d gotten as a model and that now made him picture-perfect when he was working with the local celebrities. “I quit years ago, but lately I’ve felt the need again.” Something passed over his face, some thought or emotion, and not a good one.

“Is the crime scene that bad?” Galen asked, proving that he’d noticed the expression, too.

Julian looked up almost absentmindedly, as if he weren’t really seeing the here and now. I’d seen that look before when he was seeing through his brother’s eyes. “It’s bad enough, but not so bad it makes me want to smoke.”

I debated on whether to ask him what was bad enough to send him to smoke, as he lit a cigarette and began to stride down the sidewalk. He walked as he usually did, as if the sidewalk was a runway and everyone should be looking at him. Sometimes they did. Rhys moved ahead of us, with Saraid by his side. Galen and Cathbodua took up the rear position behind Julian and me. I realized that we could use all the glamour we wanted, but they were clearly being bodyguards. That would be a clue that Julian and I weren’t what we seemed.

He seemed to notice that when I did, because he offered me his arm, and I took it. He began to touch my arm too much, and smile down at me too much. He was playing the part of wealthy lover and businessman or celebrity who needed the bodyguards. I played with him, bumping my head against his shoulder, and laughing at comments that weren’t funny at all.

He leaned over and spoke quietly, smiling brilliantly. “You always were a quick study on undercover work, Merry.”

“Thank you, you, too.”

“Oh, I’m very good under the covers.” And he laughed. He also tossed his half-smoked cigarette into the first trash can we came to.

“I thought you needed the cigarette,” I said, smiling up at him.

“I’d almost forgotten that flirting is better than smoking.” He leaned over me, putting one arm across my shoulders to draw me in against his body. I’d had a lot of practice walking like that with people about six feet tall, though he moved differently than most of my men. I slid my arm around his waist, underneath the jacket, brushing against his own gun that was at the small of his back so it didn’t ruin the line of his suit coat. We strolled up the street like that, our hips rubbing against each other as we walked.

“I didn’t think you liked flirting with women,” I said.

“I’m an equal-opportunity flirt, Merry, you should know that.”

I laughed, and this one was for real. “I do remember that, but not usually this much for me.”

He kissed the skin of my temple, lightly, but there was an intimacy to it, a reality to it that he’d never used when undercover on my arm. There had always been an edge of teasing with it. It let you know he didn’t mean it, so you wouldn’t hold it against him later.

Julian was always touching people, and that gave me a thought. I leaned into him even more tightly and spoke quietly for his ears only. “Are you not getting much touch lately?”

It startled him enough that he stumbled and caused our easy rhythm to falter. He caught himself and me, and we continued our almost lazy stroll up the sidewalk toward all the blinking lights.

“Isn’t that awfully direct for fey culture?” He whispered it against my hair.

“Yes,” I whispered back, “but we’ll be at the crime scene in minutes, and I want to know how my friend is doing.”

He smiled, though I was close enough to know that it left his eyes empty. “No, I’m not getting much touch at home. Adam seems to have buried his heart with his brother. I’m starting to look around, Merry. I’m starting to shop seriously, and I realized it’s not just sex, it’s the touch I miss. I think if I could get more touch I would be able to wait out his grief better.”

I stroked my hand across the flat planes of his stomach, and he gave me a speculative look. I smiled up at him and said, “You can have touch, Julian. Our culture doesn’t see touch as necessarily sexual.”

He laughed then, an abrupt and happy sound of surprise. “I thought you saw every touch as sexual.”

“No, sensual, but not sexual.”

“And there’s a difference?” he asked.

I traced my hand across his stomach again, while my other hand clung to his waist. “Yes.”

“Which is this?” he asked.

That made me frown. “You don’t like women, remember?”

He laughed again, and put his hand over mine where it rested on his stomach. “Yes, but you won’t share your men.”

“That would be a question for the individual men,” I said.

He raised his eyebrows at me. “Really?”

His expression made me laugh. “See, you’d rather sleep with them than with me.”

He rolled his eyes a little and made a waffling gesture with his hands, then grinned at me. “True.” He leaned down, still smiling, but his next words didn’t match. “But if I cuddle you Adam will forgive me, while he might not forgive me a man.”

I studied his face from inches away. “It’s that bad?”

He nodded, and lifted my hand off his stomach so he could lay little kisses on my fingers as he spoke. “I love Adam more than I ever thought I’d love anyone, but I’m not good without attention.” He let my hand fall and leaned our faces as close together as the height difference and my heels would allow. “It’s a weakness of mine, but I need touch, and flirting, something.”

“Come to the house for dinner tonight and we’ll do a big cuddly pile while we watch something on the movie-size TV.”

His steps hesitated, and he almost broke rhythm but caught himself, so neither of us lost a step. “Are you sure?”

“Trust me, as long as it’s not sexual you can get touch.”

“And if I wanted it to be sexual?” he asked.

That made me frown at him, and he looked away, not meeting my gaze. He pretended he was looking at the police and all the emergency vehicles, but I knew he was hiding his face from me, because whatever was in his eyes in that moment he didn’t want to share.

I stopped him, by stopping my own walk. I turned him to face me. “You told me once that your commitment to Adam was your first happiness, that you’d fucked and worked, but never been happy, not really.”

He gave a small nod.

“If you tell me your priority is to keep your commitment to him, then I’ll help you keep it, but if you’re telling me that it’s over and you want sex, that’s a different conversation.”

I watched the pain in his eyes. He drew me into a hug that left no daylight between our bodies. He’d never hugged me like that, and seldom other men unless he was teasing and trying to see if he could make them uncomfortable. But it wasn’t a hug about sex, or teasing. He held me too tightly and too desperately. I held him back and spoke with my face pressed to his chest. “Julian, what’s wrong?”

“I’m going to cheat on him, Merry. If he leaves me this alone for much longer, I’m going to cheat. I think that’s what he’s waiting for, so he can use it as an excuse to break up.”

“Why would he want to do that?” I asked.

“I don’t know, maybe because Ethan always hated the fact that his only brother was gay. He always hated me and blamed me for turning his brother into a fag.”

I drew back enough to try to see his face, but he curled around me so I couldn’t. “Ethan didn’t believe that. Adam’s always liked men.”

“He had a few girlfriends here and there. He was engaged once before me.”

I touched his face and turned him to look at me. “Is he making noises about being into women again?”

He shook his head, and I realized there were tears glittering behind those tinted glasses. He wasn’t crying yet, but he was a blink away from it. “I don’t know. He doesn’t want me to touch him. He doesn’t want anyone to touch him. I don’t know what’s in his head anymore.”

The tears trembled on the thickness of his eyelashes. He kept his eyes wide so the tears wouldn’t fall.

“Come over for dinner. You can at least have some touch.”

“We’re supposed to have dinner together tonight; if it works out I might not need the touching from anyone else.”

I smiled up at him. “If you don’t show up, then we know you and your main squeeze are having fun, and that will be great.”

He smiled at me, and wiped hastily at the unshed tears. He was gay but he was still a man, and most of them hated to cry, especially in public. “Thank you, Merry. I’m sorry to bring this to you, but my other friends, they’re mostly gay men and …”

“They see it as a chance to poach you,” I said.

He made that waffling motion again. “Not poach, but I am learning how many of my friends would be happy to be in my bed again.”

“That’s the problem with staying friends with most of your ex-lovers,” I said.

He laughed and this time it sounded happy. “What can I say? I’m just a friendly guy.”

“So I’ve heard,” I said. I hugged him, and he hugged me back, more a friend hug this time. “Have you talked to Adam about couple’s therapy?” I asked.

“He says he doesn’t need therapy. He knows what’s wrong with him. He lost his damn brother and he’s allowed to mourn.”

Rhys made a throat-clearing sound and we turned to him. “We have to show ID and get through the line.” He was utterly neutral as he said it, but I knew that he’d caught some of what we’d been doing. One, all fey have better-than-human hearing, and two, after a thousand years you get to read people.

“I’m sorry,” Julian said. “I am being unprofessional and that’s not acceptable.” He stepped away from me, straightening his jacket, smoothing his lapels, and gathering himself at the same time.

Galen leaned in and said, “We’ll cuddle you without wrecking your marriage.”

“Oh, that is a blow to the ego,” Julian said with a smile. “That you’re not even tempted to seduce me.”

Galen grinned. “I don’t think I’d be the one doing the seducing.”

Julian grinned back at him. Cathbodua frowned and said, “I will not be cuddling anyone but Usna tonight.”

“How sad for you,” I said.

Cathbodua frowned harder. I shook my head, but said, “No one has to cuddle anyone they don’t want to cuddle. It’s all about touching because you want to, not because you’re forced to.”

She exchanged a look with Saraid. “That is very different from the prince.”

Saraid said, “Happily so.”

Julian glanced from one to the other of the women, and then said, “Were you honestly thinking that Merry would force you to touch me when you didn’t want to?”

The women just looked at him. Julian shivered. “I don’t know what your life was like before this, but I’m not into force. If my charming personality doesn’t make you want my company, then so be it.”

The women exchanged another look. Cathbodua said, “Give us a few more months of this new world and we may even believe that of both you and the princess.”

“Tell Jeremy to keep all the female guards off undercover duty for a while,” Julian said.

I thought about how either of the women might have taken the little walk with Julian. Would it have seemed like force, a kind of sexual abuse? So many walking wounded to take care of, and I’d just offered to help take care of Julian. But I didn’t mind that last, because I knew how weak you could grow from lack of attention, until you began to look at strangers while the person who was supposed to love you neglected you. Humans saw it as a weakness on the part of the cheater, but I knew through my first fiancé that a person can leave a relationship in more ways than just walking away. You can leave your partner so bereft of attention that it’s like not being in love at all.

If we could help Julian through this rough patch with Adam, then we would. I understood that you could die a little bit every day from lack of the right touch from the right person. I’d spent three years without the touch of another sidhe. I didn’t want to see anyone else go through that if I could help them. And Adam wouldn’t see me as a threat, because I was a woman.

We fished out our IDs and waited for someone in charge to give us permission to cross past the uniforms. We were private detectives, not police detectives, and that meant that no uniform was going to just say, “Come on down.”

We waited in the brilliant sunlight while Julian held my hand and I held his back. I’d have rather helped him with his need than seen more dead bodies, but I wasn’t getting paid to touch my friend, I was getting paid today to look at the dead. Maybe we’d have a nice divorce case next. That was sounding pretty good as we followed the nice police detective through the crowd of police and rescue workers. They were all avoiding each other’s eyes. I’d learned that that was a bad sign—a sign that whatever lay ahead was disturbing to the people who saw a hell of a lot of disturbing things. I kept walking, but now holding Julian’s hand wasn’t just so he could get some touch for the day; it was because touching made me feel just a bit braver.