“If she’s not Human,” Graham growled. “Neither are you.”
“She’s a Dragon Queen, you… Oh.” The near side of Kalynchuk’s mouth curved up into a derisive smile. “You’re talking about Alysha. What did the little bitch tell you? That we’re descended from some magical mating between a woman and the Horned God? Could be true. Could be total bullshit. What you need to remember here and now is that the creature’s mother will kill you when she kills me.” Years of questioning unreliable witnesses slid Graham past the sudden change of topic. “Kill you, me, half of the city, most likely. She’s not exactly precise when she’s in a temper. And then she’ll hunt, because she’ll have worked up an appetite, and more people will die. The Gale girl. The old women.”
“Or they’ll win.”
“Unlikely.”
“I’ll take that chance.”
“No,” Kalynchuk sighed, turning on the windshield wipers as it started to rain, “you won’t because in the end you will do what I tell you to do. Just like you always have.”
“Fuck you.”
“Touch your nose with your right thumb.”
Graham fought the impulse, but his right arm rose like a puppeteer held the string. He could feel a trickle of sweat run down his side, but he could also feel his thumb against his nose. Then his body was his own again and he threw himself across the seats only to be slammed back, his head impacting with the window. The pain was strangely cleansing.
“Do your seat belt up. You may obey me now for more easy-to-understand reasons than you did,” he continued as Graham did as he was told, “in that now you have no choice—but you will continue to obey. Don’t worry, after it’s over, I’ll skip out on watching the old women swatted out of the sky by the Dragon Lords, and for all I care, you can return to your one true love. Have they told you the men choose? Also bullshit. Choose the decoration of your cage. Choose the length of your leash.” His knuckles whitened as the steering wheel creaked under his grip. “Choose whose hands hold the end of that leash, but never for a moment think you can choose to be free.”
“They say you chose to kill eight members of your family.” Freedom being just another word for mass slaughter. “Is that true?”
“It was them, or me. All power corrupts.” The laugh lifted the hair off the back of Graham’s neck. “Hypocritical fucking cows.”
“Jack’s bored.”
Glancing up at Charlie leaning against the end of the counter, Allie sighed. “I thought you were teaching him to play World of Warcraft?”
“He’s a little aggressive, where a little means he went completely fucking nuts. Although, to be fair, the flamethrower was a bad idea. What are you doing?”
Allie waved the dimpled metal cap covering the tip of her baby finger. “Entering this basket of thimbles into the database.”
“Each individual thimble?”
“They’re for sale separately, so, yeah.”
Charlie slid one on, and then another, and then another until all eight fingertips were armored. “Give a thimble for luck, use a thimble to predict a death, we beg your acceptance of this elegant thimble, the dodo said solemnly.” She rattled them off back into the basket. “And no, anal retentive does not have a hyphen.”
“Cataloging helps me not think.”
“Didn’t cataloging used to be your job? I mean, I’m all in favor of a job that requires no thought but you ever think that might be why you were let go?”
“Bite me.” Allie pulled a pale blue Wedgwood thimble, slightly chipped, out of the basket as Charlie sprawled over the counter. “It helps me not think of anything but cataloging, okay? When I think about her, I can feel the fire.”
“That’d suck,” Charlie allowed. “Let me give you something new to think about, then. Where’s Joe?”
“In the bathroom.” She frowned at a Thimble Collector’s International twentieth anniversary thimble. Definitely commemorative, but was it collectible to anyone outside the club? “Does this look like actual silver to you?”
“Don’t know, don’t care. What do you figure Joe’s doing?”
“Charlie!”
“Got you, it’s a trick question. I should have asked, who do you figure Joe’s doing?”
Allie turned slowly to face the back of the store. “Please tell me it’s Katie.”
“Nope. Now, where do you think Auntie Gwen is?”
“With the rest of the circle at the spa?”
Charlie’s brows went up.
“Oh, no…” Allie moved out from behind the counter but before she could get any further, Charlie grabbed her arm.
“He’s Fey. He’ll be fine. He only looks like a kid.”
That was true as far as it went. Joe’d told her the Call commanding his return to the UnderRealm had probably been a result of the Human half of the changeling bond dying of old age. That was also completely irrelevant as far as Allie was concerned. “He’s my responsibility.”
“Why? You’re not banging him.”
There was that.
“Not banging who?” Michael asked.
They turned together.
Charlie released Allie’s arm and stepped away. “I’ll just go over here,” she said, walking to one of the center tables, “and poke through this box of… Okay, don’t care about power cables. Have plenty.” Both hands in the air, she continued backing down the aisle. “Maybe I’ll look at the books.”
Allie looked up at Michael, who brushed his hair back off his face, blush rising under his tan. “I could have really hurt you.”
He shrugged. “You didn’t.”
“I could have.” And then she realized he couldn’t possibly hear her since he was also talking.
Apologies spilled out simultaneously, tangling in each other until he held up both hands and managed to slide “Me first” into a pause.
She owed him that much. “Okay.”
Taking a deep breath, he dried his palms on the thighs of his jeans. “Allie, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
She waited but, bottom line, Michael was still a guy, and that was it. “Or maybe you should have said it years ago.”
He shrugged. “How could you think I didn’t know?”
“I was that obvious?”
“To the people who love you, yeah.”
When he opened his arms, she hesitated a moment before moving into them. “Things are changing.”
“Not us.”
Maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe they already had. Maybe it didn’t matter because she knew Michael would stand there, with his arms open, waiting for her to find him again. Barely aware of moving, she tucked herself up against the broad shelter of his chest, resting her head against his heart. “No matter what happens between me and Graham, I will always love you.”
She felt his lips against the top of her head. “I know.”
“How can you know?”
“Because no matter what happened with me and Brian…”
“And Peter and Joey and Steve and…”
“Shut up.” He tightened his grip. “Because no matter what happened with me and Brian, I always loved you.”
“Medic!” The plaid of Michael’s shirt might be all Allie could see, but Charlie, for all her ability to project over a crowd, was definitely a lot closer than the bookshelves at the far end of the store. “My pancreas just shut down from the sugar overload. On the bright side, I’ve got two verses and a chorus finished. A couple more verses, a dead dog, and a banjo, and this is going to make ’em cry.”
“I thought banjos did that all on their own,” Allie snorted backing out of Michael’s embrace. “I should really get back to…”
Burning!
Raging!
She didn’t remember hitting the floor, but both knees were telling her she’d dropped like a brick. The hardwood smoked slightly against her palms. It felt as though her blood was on fire.
Under Michael’s panicked reaction, she could hear boots on the stairs.
“Hey, Al! My mother’s…” The boots skidded to a stop just inside her somewhat limited field of vision. “Oh, you heard.”
“At least with the rain, there won’t be too many people in the park.” Allie came out of the bedroom buckling her belt. Clothes suitable for thimbles didn’t cut it for a potential apocalypse. Too flammable, for starters. “Auntie Gwen…” She slid right past the reason Auntie Gwen had a purpling bite mark just under the edge of her jaw. “… you’re driving the bus because Michael and Joe are staying here. I don’t want noncombatants anywhere near this. Pick up the others at the hotel, and we’ll meet you there.”