Divine Misdemeanors

Chapter Six

It wasn’t big, bad policemen. It was big, bad police officers, because one of the uniforms was a woman, and they were both perfectly nice, but Bittersweet would not be comforted.

The policewoman did not like the Fear Dearg. I suppose if you hadn’t spent your life around beings who made him look like a GQ cover boy he might be worth a little fear. The problem really was that the Fear Dearg liked that she was afraid of him. He kept an eye on the hysterical Bittersweet, but he also managed to inch ever closer to the blonde woman in her pressed uniform. Her hair was back in a tight ponytail. Every bit of shiny on her was shined. Her partner was a little older, and a lot less spit and polish. I was betting she was new on the force. Rookies tended to take it all much more to heart at first.

Robert had asked Eric to man the front with Alice. I was also guessing that he had sent his human lover away from Bittersweet just in case she lost control of her power again. If she hit Eric the way she had hit Robert and Doyle, he might have been hurt. Better to surround hysterical fey with people who were tougher than pure human blood could make you.

Bittersweet was sitting on the coffee table crying softly. She’d exhausted herself with hysterics, the energy burst, and crying; all of it had taken its toll. It was actually possible for a really tiny fey to deplete their energy so badly that they could fade away. It was especially hazardous outside of faerie. The more metal and tech around a fey, the harder it could be on them. How had such a tiny thing come to Los Angeles? Why had she been exiled, or had she simply followed her wildflower across the country like the insect she resembled? Some flower faeries were very devoted to their plants, especially if they were species specific. They were like any fanatic: the narrower your focus, the more devoted you could be.

Robert had taken one of the overstuffed leather chairs and given us the couch. The couch was actually a nice intermediate size between my and Robert’s height, and the average height of a human worker. Which meant it fit me well enough, but probably didn’t fit Doyle or Frost quite right, but they weren’t interested in sitting down, so it didn’t matter.

Frost sat on the arm of the couch by me. Doyle stood near the “door” of the half-partitioned room and kept an eye on the outer door. Because my guards wouldn’t sit down, the two uniforms didn’t want to sit either. The older cop, Officer Wright, did not like my men. He was six feet and in good shape, from his short brown hair to his comfortable and well-chosen boots. He kept looking from Frost to Doyle to the little faery on the table, but mostly at Frost and Doyle. I was betting that Wright had learned a thing or two about physical potential in his years on the job. Anyone who could judge that never liked my men much. No policeman likes to think that they may not be the biggest dog in the room just in case a dogfight breaks out.

O’Brian, the female rookie, was five foot eight at least, which was tall to me, but not standing there with her partner and my guards. But I was betting that she was used to that on the force; what she wasn’t used to was the Fear Dearg at her side. He’d worked himself within inches of her. He’d done nothing wrong, nothing she could complain about except invade her personal space, but I was betting that she’d taken to heart the lectures on human/fey relations. One of the cultural differences between us and most Americans was that we didn’t have the personal-space boundaries that most did, so if Officer O’Brian complained, then she was being insensitive to our people with Princess Meredith sitting right there. I watched her try not to be nervous as the Fear Dearg moved just a fraction closer to her. I watched the thought in her blue eyes as she tried to work out the political implications of telling the Fear Dearg to back off.

There was a polite knock on the door, which meant it wasn’t Lucy and her people. Most police have very authoritative knocks. Robert called, “Come in.”

Alice pushed through the door with a small tray of pastries. “Here’s something for you to munch on while I take your orders.” She’d flashed a smile at everyone, showing dimples in the corners of her full red mouth. The red lipstick was the only deviation to her black-and-white outfit. Did her smile linger a little on the Fear Dearg? Did her eyes harden just a little at his closeness to O’Brian? Perhaps, or maybe I was looking for it.

She hesitated with the sweets as if unsure who to serve first. I helped her make the decision. “Is Bittersweet cool to the touch, Robert?”

Robert had moved over to sit with the demi-fey and she was still sobbing quietly on his shoulder, huddled against the smooth line of his neck. “Yes. She needs something sweet.”

Alice gave me a thankful smile, then offered the tray first to her boss and the little fey. Robert took an iced cake and held it up toward the little fey. She seemed not to notice it.

“Is she hurt?” Officer Wright asked, and he was suddenly more alert, more something. I’d seen other police do that, and some of my guards. One minute they’re just standing there, the next they are “on;” they are cop, or warrior. It’s like some internal switch is hit and they are just suddenly more.

Officer O’Brian tried to follow suit, but she was too new. She didn’t know how to turn on the hyperalert mode yet. She’d learn.

I felt Frost tense beside me on the couch arm. I knew that if Doyle had been on my other side, I’d have felt the same from him. They were all warriors, and it was hard for them not to react to the other man.

“Bittersweet has used up a lot of energy,” I said, “and needs to refuel.”

Alice was now offering the tray of sweets to Frost and me. I took the second frosted cake, which was somewhere between a cupcake and something smaller, but the frosting was white and frothy, and I was suddenly hungry. I’d noticed that since I got pregnant. I’d be fine, and then I’d suddenly be ravenous.

Frost shook his head. He was keeping his hands free. Was he hungry? How often had he and Doyle both stood at a banquet at the Queen’s side and guarded her safety while the rest of us ate? Had that been hard for them? It had never occurred to me to ask, and I couldn’t ask now in front of so many outsiders. I filed the thought away for later and began to eat my cake by licking off the frosting.

“She looks like she’s had a hard day,” Wright said.

I realized that they might not even know why they were here to guard Bittersweet. They might simply have been told that there was a witness to guard, or maybe even less. They’d been told to show up and keep an eye on her, and that’s what they were doing.

“She has, but it’s more than that. She needs fuel.” I ran a finger through the icing and licked the tip of my finger. It was homemade-frosting sweet, but not too sweet.

“You mean eat?” O’Brian asked.

I nodded. “Yes, but it’s more than that. We don’t eat and we just get hungry, maybe a little sick. When you’re warm-blooded, the smaller you are the harder it is to maintain your body temperature and your energy level. Shrews have to eat about five times their own body weight every day just to keep from starving to death.”

I gave up with my finger and just licked the icing off the cake. Officer Wright glanced at me, then quickly away and ignored me. Neither officer took anything off the tray, wanting to keep their hands free, too, maybe, or were they told not to take food from the faeries? That was only a rule if you were inside faerie and were human. But I didn’t say anything, because if they were passing on the cakes because of fear of faery magic, it was an insult to Robert.

The Fear Dearg took a piece of carrot cake from the tray, smiling his wicked smile up at Alice. Then he stared at me. There was no glancing out of the corners of his eyes; he simply stared. Among the fey if you were trying to be sexy and someone didn’t notice, it was an insult. Was I trying to be sexy? I hadn’t meant to. I just wanted my icing first, and without silverware there were only so many options.

Robert was still holding the iced cake up to the small fey on his shoulder. “For me, Bittersweet, just a taste.”

“You mean she could die just from not eating enough?” O’Brian asked.

“Not just from that. The hysteria and her use of magic all eat up some of the power that enables her to function at this size and still be a reasoning being.”

“I’m just a cop, you need to uses smaller words, or more of them,” Wright said. He looked at me as he said it, then quickly away. I was making him uncomfortable. Among the humans I was being rude. Among the fey, he was being rude.

Frost slid one arm around me, his fingers lingering on the bare skin of my shoulder. He was still watching the room, but his touch let me know that he’d noticed, and that he was thinking what it would mean to have me use the same skills on his body. Humans who try to play by these rules often get it wrong and are too sexual about it. It’s polite to notice, not to grope.

I talked to the officers as Frost’s fingers traced my shoulder in delicate circles. Doyle was at a disadvantage. He was too far away to touch me, but he needed to keep his attention on the far door, so how could he acknowledge my behavior and not be a bad guard? I realized that this was the dilemma that the queen had put him in for centuries. He’d shown nothing to her; the cold, unmovable Darkness. I left the icing to itself while I talked to the police and thought about that.

“It takes energy to use a complicated brain. It takes energy to be bipedal, and to do all the things we do at our size. Now shrink us down and it takes magic to make fey like Bittersweet able to exist.”

“You mean without magic she couldn’t survive?” O’Brian asked.

“I mean she has a magical aura, for lack of a better term, that encircles her and keeps her working. She is by all laws of physics and biology impossible; only magic sustains the smallest of us.”

Both officers were looking at the little faery as she scooped icing off the cake and ate it as delicately as a cat with cream on its paw.

Alice said, “I’ve never heard it explained that clearly before.” She gave a nod to Robert. “Sorry, boss man, but it’s the truth.”

Robert said, “No, you’re right.” He looked at me, and it was a more intent look than before. “I forgot that you were educated at human schools. You have a bachelor of science in biology, correct?”

I nodded.

“It makes you uniquely able to explain our world to their world.”

I thought about shrugging but just said, “I’ve been explaining my world to their world since I was six and my father took me out of faerie to be educated in public school.”

“Those of us who were exiled when that happened always wondered why Prince Essus did it.”

I smiled. “I’m sure there were plenty of rumors.”

“Yes, but not the truth, I think.”

I did shrug then. My father had taken me into exile because his sister, my aunt, the Queen of Air and Darkness, had tried to drown me. If I’d been truly sidhe and immortal, I couldn’t have died by drowning. The fact that my father had to save me meant that I wasn’t immortal, and to my aunt Andais that meant that I was no different than if someone’s purebred dog had accidentally gotten pregnant by the neighbors’ mongrel. If I could be drowned, then I should be.

My father had taken me and his household into exile to keep me safe. To the human media he did it so I would know my country of birth, and not just be a creature of faerie. It was some of the most positive publicity the Unseelie Court had ever gotten.

Robert was watching me. I went back to my icing, because I did not dare share the truth with anyone outside the court. Family secrets are something the sidhe, both flavors, take seriously.

Alice had set the tray on the coffee table and was taking orders, starting at the opposite side of the room with Doyle. He ordered an exotic coffee that he’d ordered the first time we’d come here, and that he liked to have at the house. It wasn’t a coffee that I’d ever seen in faerie, which meant that he’d been outside enough to grow fond of it. He was also the only sidhe I’d ever seen with a nipple piercing to go with all his earrings. Again, it spoke of time outside faerie, but when? In my lifetime he hadn’t been that far from the queen’s side for any length of time that I remembered.

I loved him dearly, but it was one of those moments when I realized, again, that I honestly didn’t know that much about him, not really.

The Fear Dearg ordered one of those coffee drinks that has so much in it that it’s more milk shake than coffee. The officers passed, and then it was my turn. I wanted Earl Grey tea, but the doctor had made me give up caffeine for the duration of the pregnancy. Earl Grey without caffeine seemed wrong, so I ordered green tea with jasmine. Frost ordered straight Assam, but took cream and sugar with it. He liked black teas brewed strong, then made sweet and pale.

Robert ordered cream tea for himself and Bittersweet. It would come with real scones, clotted cream thick as butter, and fresh strawberry jam. They were famous for their cream teas at the Fael.

I almost ordered one, but scones don’t go well with green tea. It just wasn’t the same, and I suddenly didn’t want anything else sweet. Protein sounded good. Was I starting to get cravings? I leaned to the table and laid the half-eaten cake on a napkin. The icing was totally unappealing now.

Robert said, “Go back to the officers, Alice. They need at least coffee.”

Wright said, “We’re on duty.”

“So are we,” Doyle said in that deep, thicker-than-molasses voice. “Are you implying that we hold our duty less dear than you hold yours, Officer Wright?”

They ordered coffee. O’Brian went first and ordered black, but Wright ordered frozen coffee with cream and chocolate—a coffee shake even sweeter than the Fear Dearg had ordered. O’Brian did that quick look at Wright, and the look was enough. If she’d known he was going to order something so girlie, she’d have ordered something besides black coffee. I watched the thought go over her face; could she change her order?

“Officer O’Brian, would you like to change your order?” I asked. I wiped my fingers on another napkin. I suddenly didn’t even want the sticky residue of the icing.

She said, “I … no, thank you, Princess Meredith.”

Wright made a sound in his throat. She looked at him, confused. “You don’t say that to the fey.”

“Say what?” she asked.

“Thank you,” I said. “Some of the older fey take thanks as a grave insult.”

She blushed through her tan. “I’m sorry,” she said, then she stopped in confusion and looked at Wright.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m not old enough to see ‘thank you’ as an insult, but it is a good general rule when dealing with us.”

“I am old enough,” Robert said, “but I’ve been running this place too long to be insulted about much of anything.” He smiled, and it was a good smile, all white, perfect teeth and handsome face. I wondered how much all the work had cost. My grandmother had been half brownie, so I knew just how much he’d had changed.

Alice went to get our orders. The door shut behind her, and then there was a very firm, loud knock. It made Bittersweet jump and touch Robert’s shirt with her icing-covered hands. Now that was the police. Lucy came through the door without waiting for an invitation.