A Caress Of Twilight

Chapter 9

Maeve Reed was using magic to appear more human. She was tall, slender with a bare swell of hips to rum the line of her tan slacks. Her long-sleeved blouse was pale harvest gold unbuttoned to midchest, giving tantalizing glimpses of tanned flesh and the edge of small firm breasts. If I'd tried wearing something like that, I'd have fallen out all over the place. She was built like most of the top fashion models, except she didn't have to starve or exercise to look like this. It was just the way she looked.

A thin brown headband kept her long blond hair in place. The hair hung straight and fine to her waist. Her skin was a nice medium tan. After all, the immortal don't have to sweat skin cancer. Her makeup was so light and so artful that at first I thought she wasn't wearing any. The bones of her face were sculpted and lovely, and the eyes were a startling, drowning blue.

She was beautiful as she came toward us, but it was a human beauty. She was hiding herself from us. Maybe it was habit by now, or maybe she had her reasons.

Julian was on his feet meeting her before she got to the couch. He murmured to her, probably apologizing for Ethan and his unfortunate «non-human» comment.

She shook her head, making her tiny gold earrings shiver. "If this is how he really feels about the fey, then I think he would be more comfortable working elsewhere."

Ethan walked around the couch, too. "I have no problem with you, Ms. Reed. You're Seelie Court, the Bringers of Beauty and Wishes." He pointed at us a little dramatically, I thought. "They are the stuff of nightmares and should not be allowed in this house. They are a danger to you and to everyone around them."

"How much business are you losing to us?" I asked, and for some reason my voice carried into the sudden silence.

Ethan turned on me, probably to say something else unfortunate. Julian grabbed his arm; it looked like a firm grip from where I was sitting. Ethan's body reacted as if he'd been hit, and for a second, I thought we'd get to see a fight.

"Just go, Ethan," Julian said, voice low.

Ethan yanked free of Julian. He gave a stiff little bow to Ms. Reed. "I'll go. But I just want you to understand that I know the Seelie are different from what the Unseelie are."

"I have not set foot in the Seelie Court for over a century, Mr. Kane. I will never be a member of it again."

Ethan frowned; I think he'd thought Ms. Reed would agree with him. Normally, he was sullen and unpleasant, but not to this degree. We must have really been cutting into their business.

Ethan fumbled over some more apologies, then stomped out. After the door slammed behind us, I said, "Is he like that often?"

Julian shrugged. "Ethan isn't fond of a lot of people."

"I'm feeling terribly neglected here, Julian, with Ethan gone and all," Maeve said.

I blinked at her smiling, carefully beautiful face. She looked so sincere, even her blue-blue eyes sparkled with the force of it. She was working just a little hard at being charming, and human. It would have been a whole lot easier to be charming if she'd dropped the glamour she was wasting in order to appear humanly — rather than inhumanly — beautiful.

Julian glanced at me, then turned his full smiling self on Maeve Reed. In his own way Julian was turning on the charm, too. I realized with a start that he had his own personal glamour. It might have been actual conscious magic, but I doubted it. Most personal glamour that bolsters charisma is accidental for humans. Most of the time.

I watched them doing a minor job of shining at each other, and realized that the charm wasn't for our benefit. I glanced behind me at Frank. He was staring at her as if he'd never really seen a woman before, or at least not one like this. Maeve Reed was trying to be inhumanly charming, but still humanly beautiful, for the benefit of her human bodyguards, not us. She would have used more special effects if the show had been for us.

"Ms. Reed," Julian gushed, moving in to take her elbow, steering her away from us, "we would never neglect you. You're not only our client, but one of the most precious objects we've ever been asked to guard. We would lay our lives down for you. What more can men do when they worship a woman?"

I thought he was laying it on a bit thick, but I hadn't spent any time around Maeve Reed. Maybe she liked the compliments thick.

She managed a delicate blush that I knew was magic and not real. I could feel it in the air. Sometimes the most simple physical changes take the most magic. She slid her arm through his and lowered her voice enough that we couldn't hear what was said. Oh, we could have eavesdropped, but that would have been rude and she would probably have sensed the spell. We didn't want to antagonize the goddess; not yet, anyway.

They turned back to face us, both smiling, both charming, her grip on his arm very firm. Something in Julian's eyes was trying to give me a message, but I couldn't quite read it behind his hip yellow tinted glasses.

"Ms. Reed has persuaded me to remain at her side for the duration of your visit." He raised an eyebrow as he spoke.

And finally I got the message. Ms. Reed had hired Kane and Hart to protect her from us. She was afraid of the Unseelie Court, enough that she wouldn't be alone with us without backup, both magical and physical. Although her magic thrummed through this house, this land, these walls, she still feared us. You'd think the fey wouldn't be so superstitious, especially about other fey, but they often are. My father said it came from knowing almost nothing about any other fey culture but the one we were born into. Ignorance breeds fear.

There'd been so much magic inside Maeve's walls that almost from the moment we'd driven through the gates I'd begun to not «hear» it. It was a skill you learned if you spent too much time in and around major-brouhaha magic. You had to deaden its touch, or you spent all your time sensing the constant magic around you, and it deadened you to newer spells, more immediate dangers. It was like being bombarded by a hundred radio stations at once. If you tried to listen to all of them, you heard nothing.

I looked into Maeve Reed's smiling, unreadable face and shook my head. I turned to look at Doyle. I tried to ask with my eyes and face how rude and how human I was allowed to be today.

He seemed to understand, because he gave a tiny nod. I took it to mean I could be as rude and human as I wanted. I hoped that was what it meant, because I was just about to pay several mortal insults to the golden goddess of Hollywood.