The Fear Dearg dropped back to talk to us. “I have never seen a sidhe able to use glamour so well.”
“That’s high praise coming from you,” I said. “Your people are known for their ability at glamour.”
“The lesser fey are all better at glamour than the bigger folk.”
“I’ve seen sidhe make garbage look like a feast and have people eat it,” I said.
Doyle said, “And the Fear Dearg need a leaf to create money, a cracker to be a cake, a log to be a purse of gold. You need something to pin the glamour to for it to work.”
“So do I,” I said. I thought about it. “So do the sidhe that I’ve seen able to do it.”
“Oh, but once the sidhe could conjure castles out of thin air, and food to tempt any mortal that was mere air,” the Fear Dearg said.
“I’ve not seen …” Then I stopped, because the sidhe didn’t like admitting out loud that their magic was fading. It was considered rude, and if the Queen of Air and Darkness heard you, the punishment would be a slap, if you were lucky, and if you weren’t, you’d bleed for reminding her that her kingdom was lessening.
The Fear Dearg gave a little skip, and Frost was forced a little back from my side, or he would have stepped on the smaller fey. Doyle growled at him, a deep rumbling bass that matched the huge black dog he could shift into. Frost stepped forward, forcing the Fear Dearg to step ahead or be stepped on.
“The sidhe have always been petty,” he said, as if it didn’t bother him at all, “but you were saying, my queen, that you’d never seen such glamour from the sidhe. Not in your lifetime, eh?”
The door of the Fael was in front of us now. It was all glass and wood, very quaint and old-fashioned, as if it were a store from decades before this one.
“I need to speak with one of the demi-fey,” I said.
“About the murders, eh?” he asked.
We all stopped moving for a heartbeat, then I was suddenly behind the men and could only glimpse the edge of his red coat around their bodies.
“Oh, ho,” the Fear Dearg said with a chuckle. “You think it’s me. You think I slit their throats for them.”
“We do now,” Doyle said.
The Fear Dearg laughed, and it was the kind of laugh that if you heard it in the dark, you’d be afraid. It was the kind of laugh that enjoyed pain.
“You can talk to the demi-fey who fled here to tell the tale. She was full of all sorts of details. Hysterical she was, babbling about the dead being dressed like some child’s story complete with picked flowers in their hands.” He made a disgusted sound. “Every faery knows that no flower faery would ever pick a flower and kill it. They tend them.”
I hadn’t thought of that. He was absolutely right. It was a human mistake, just like the illustration in the first place. Some fey could keep a picked flower alive, but it was not a common talent. Most demi-fey didn’t like bouquets of flowers. They smelled of death.
Whoever our killer was, they were human. I needed to tell Lucy. But I had another thought. I tried to push past Doyle, but it was like trying to move a small mountain; you could push, but you didn’t make much progress. I spoke around him. “Did this demi-fey see the killings?”
“Nay”—and what I could see of the Fear Dearg’s small wizened face seemed truly sad—“she went to tend the plants that are hers on the hillside and found the police already there.”
“We still need to talk to her,” I said.
He nodded the slip of his face that I could see between Doyle and Frost’s bodies. “She’s in the back with Dobbin having a spot of something to calm her nerves.”
“How long has she been here?”
“Ask her yourself. You said you wanted to talk to a demi-fey, not her specifically. Why did you want one to speak with, my queen?”“I wanted to warn the others that they might be in danger.”
He turned so that one eye stared through the opening the men had left us. The black eye curled around the edges, and I realized he was grinning. “Since when did the sidhe give a rat’s ass how many flower faeries were lost in L.A.? A dozen fade every year from too much metal and technology, but neither faerie court will let them back in even to save their lives.” The grin faded as he finished, and left him angry.
I fought to keep the surprise off my face. If what he’d just said was true, I hadn’t known it. “I care or I wouldn’t be here.”
He nodded, solemn. “I hope you care, Meredith, daughter of Essus, I hope you truly do.”
Frost turned and Doyle was left to give the Fear Dearg his full attention. Frost was looking behind us, and I realized we had a little line forming.
“Do you mind?” a man asked.
“Sorry,” I said, and smiled. “We were catching up with old friends.” He smiled before he could catch himself, and his voice was less irritated as he said, “Well, can you catch up inside?”
“Yes, of course,” I said. Doyle opened the door, made the Fear Dearg go first, and in we went.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE FAEL WAS ALL POLISHED WOOD, LOVINGLY HAND CARVED. I knew that most of the interior woodwork had been recovered from an old West saloon/bar that was being demolished. The scent of some herbal and sweet musk polish blended with the rich aroma of tea, and overall was the scent of coffee, so rich you could taste it on your tongue. They must have just finished grinding some fresh for a customer, because Robert insisted that the coffee be tightly covered. He wanted to keep the freshness in, but it was more so that the coffee didn’t overwhelm the gentler scent of his teas.
Every table was full, and there were people sitting at the curved edge of the bar, waiting for tables or taking their tea at the bar. There was almost an even number of humans to fey, but they were all lesser fey. If I dropped the glamour we would have been the only sidhe. There weren’t that many sidhe in exile in Los Angeles, but the ones who were here saw the Fael as a hangout for the lesser beings. There were a couple of clubs far away from here that catered to the sidhe and the sidhe wannabes. Now that I’d lightened Doyle’s skin, the ears marked him as a possible wannabe who’d gotten those pointy ear implants so he’d look like an “elf.” There was actually another tall man sitting at a far table with his own implants. He’d even grown his blond hair long and straight. He was handsome, but there was a shape to his broad shoulders that said he hit the gym a lot, and just a roughness to him that marked him as human and not sidhe, like a sculpture that hadn’t been smoothed quite enough.
The blond wannabe stared at us. Most of the patrons were looking, but then most looked away. The blond stared at us over the rim of his teacup, and I didn’t like the level of attention. He was too human to see through the glamour, but I didn’t like him. I wasn’t sure why. It was almost as if I’d seen him somewhere before, or should know him. It was just a niggling sensation. I was probably just being jumpy. Murder scenes do that sometimes, make you see bad guys everywhere.
Doyle touched my arm. “What is wrong?” he whispered against my hair.
“Nothing. I just thought I recognized someone.”
“The blond with the implants?” he asked.
“Hm-hm,” I said, not moving my lips, because I really didn’t like how he was staring at us.
“Good of you to join us this fine morning.” It was a hale and hearty voice, one to greet you and make you happy that you’d come. Robert Thrasher, as in thrashing wheat, stood behind the counter polishing the wood with a clean white cloth. He was smiling at us, his nut-brown face handsome. He’d let modern surgery give him a nose, and make the cheekbones and chin graceful, though tiny. He was tall for a brownie, my own height, but he was still small of bone, and the doctor who had done his face had kept that in mind so that if you hadn’t known that he’d begun life with only empty holes where the nose was, and a face closer to that of the Fear Dearg, you’d never have known that he hadn’t been this delicate, handsome man all his life.
If anyone ever asked for a plastic surgeon recommendation, I’d send them to Robert’s doctor.
He smiled, only his dark brown eyes showing the edge of his worry, but none of the customers would see it. “I’ve got your order in the back. Come back and have a cup before you approve it.”
“Sounds good,” I said, all happy to go with his tone. I’d lived in the Unseelie Court when the only magic I could do was glamour. I knew how to pretend to feel things that I wasn’t feeling at all. It had made me good at undercover work for the Grey Detective Agency.
Robert handed the cloth to a young woman who looked like a pinup girl for Goth Monthly, from her black hair to her black velvet minidress, striped hose, and clunky retroish shoes. She sported a neck tattoo and a piercing through her dark lipsticked mouth.
“Mind the front for me, Alice.”
“Will do,” she said and smiled brightly at him. Ah, a perky Goth, not a gloomy one. Positive attitude makes better counter help.
The Fear Dearg stayed behind, twisting his face into a smile for the tall human girl. She smiled down at him, and there wasn’t a shadow in her face that saw anything but attraction in the small fey.
Robert was moving and we were following, so I left off speculating on whether Alice and the Fear Dearg were a couple, or at least hooked up. He wouldn’t have been my cup of tea, but then I knew what he was capable of; did she?