Divine Misdemeanors (Merry Gentry #8)(50)

“More sithens will come,” Barinthus said.
“Maybe, but until they do, we need money. We need as many people as possible bringing in money. That includes you.”
“You didn’t tell me that you wanted me to take the bodyguarding jobs he offered.”
“Don’t call him ‘he’; his name is Jeremy. Jeremy Grey, and he’s been making a living out here among the humans for decades, and those skills are a hell of a lot more useful to me now than your ability to make the ocean come up and smash into a house. Which was childish, by the way.”
“The people in question don’t need bodyguards. They simply want me to stand around and be stared at.”“No, they want you to stand around and be handsome and attract attention to them and their lives.”
“I am not a freak to be paraded for cameras.”
“No one remembers that story from the fifties, Barinthus,” Rhys said.
One reporter had called Barinthus the Fish Man because of the collapsible webbing between his fingers. That reporter had died in a boating accident. Eyewitnesses said that the water just came up and slapped the boat.
Barinthus turned away from us, his hands going into his coat pockets. Doyle said, “Frost and I have both guarded humans who didn’t need guarding. We have stood and let them admire us and pay money for it.”
“You did one job and then you refused after that,” Frost said to Barinthus. “What happened to make you say no after that?”
“I told Merry it was beneath me to pretend to guard someone when I should be guarding her.”
“Did the client try to seduce you?” Frost asked.
Barinthus shook his head; his hair moved more than it should have, like the ocean on a windy day. “Seduction is not crude enough for what the woman did.”
“She touched you,” Frost said, and just the way he said it made me look at him.
“You say that like it’s happened to you, too.”
“They invite us to the parties to do more than guard them, Merry, you know that.”
“I know they want media attention but none of you told me that the clients had gotten that out of hand.”
“We’re supposed to be protecting you, Meredith,” Doyle said, “not the other way around.”
“Is that why you and Frost are back to guarding mostly just me?”
“See,” Barinthus said, “you’ve distanced yourself from it, too.”
“But we help Meredith with her investigations. We didn’t just stop doing the parties and then hide away by the sea,” Doyle said.
“Part of the problem is that you haven’t picked a partner,” Rhys said.
“I don’t know what you mean by that.”
“I work with Galen, and we watch each other’s backs, and make sure that the only hands that touch us are the ones we want touching each other. A partner isn’t just to watch your back in a battle, Barinthus.”
That arrogance that Frost hid behind was back on Barinthus’s face, but I realized that for him it wasn’t just a version of a blank face.
“Do you honestly believe that no one among the men is worthy to partner with you?” I asked.
He just looked at me, which was answer enough, I supposed. He looked at Doyle. “Once I would have been happy to work with Darkness.” 
“But not now that I’ve partnered with Frost,” he said.
“You have chosen your friends.”
I wondered for a moment if Barinthus had a crush on Doyle, or did his words mean only what he said. The fact that I’d never realized he was more than my father’s friend had made me question a lot of things.
“It’s okay,” Rhys said. “You and I have never gotten along.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Old news. If you want to stay here, then you need to contribute in a real way, Barinthus. You’re going to start by explaining to Jeremy and the nice police wizards why that isn’t sidhe magic.” I gave as good eye contact as I could with a two-foot height difference. I guess with the three-inch heels it was a little less, but it was still a neck-craning moment. It’s always hard to look tough when you’re looking that far up at someone.
His hair flared out around him for all the world as if it were underwater, though I knew it would be dry to the touch. It was a new show of growing power, but I’d already noticed that it seemed to be an emotional reaction for him.
“Is that a no, or a yes?” I asked.
“I will try to explain,” he said at last.
“Fine, good, let’s get this done so we can go home.”
“Are you tired?” Frost asked.
“Yes.”
Barinthus said, “I am a fool. You may not look it yet, but you are with child. I should be taking care of you. Instead I am making things harder for you.”
I nodded. “That’s about what I was thinking.” I led the way back to the police and Jeremy. We all gathered around the wand again. Barinthus didn’t apologize, but he did explain.
“If it was truly sidhe workmanship it would not have the power flares. If I understand what electrical shorts are, then that’s accurate. The flaring points mark weak spots in the magic, as if the person who enchanted it didn’t have enough power to make the magic smoothly. The flaring points are also as Wizard Wilson says, moments when the power grows stronger. I believe one of those power flares is what harmed the policeman who was originally hurt.”
“So if you had made it, or another sidhe, then the magical marks would be smooth and the power would be even,” Wilson said.
Barinthus nodded.
“Not to be rude,” Carmichael said, “but aren’t the sidhe less powerful than they once were magically?”
There was that uncomfortable moment when someone says something that everyone knows, but no one is supposed to talk about. It was Rhys who said, “That would be true.”
“Sorry, but if that’s true, then why couldn’t this be a sidhe with less control of his, or her, magic? Maybe it’s the best the wizard could do?”
Barinthus shook his head. “No.”
“Her logic is sound,” Doyle said.
“You see the symbols; you know what they are for, Darkness. We are forbidden such magic, and have been for centuries.”
“These symbols are old enough that I’m not familiar with all of them,” I said.
“The wand is designed to harvest magic,” Rhys said.
I frowned at him. “You mean to make your own magic grow more powerful?”
“Nope.”
I frowned harder.
“It’s designed to steal other people’s power,” Doyle said.
“But you can’t do that,” I said. “Not that we’re not allowed to do it, but it’s not possible to steal someone’s personal magic. It’s intrinsic to them, like their intelligence, or their personality.”
“Yes and no,” he said.
I was beginning to be tired, really tired. I hadn’t had any real pregnancy symptoms, but suddenly I was tired, achingly so. “Can I have a chair?” I asked.Wilson said, “I’m sorry, Merry, I mean, of course.” He went and got a chair.
“You look pale,” Carmichael said. She started to touch my face like you’d check a child for fever, then stopped herself in mid-motion.
Rhys did it for her. “You feel cool and clammy. That can’t be good.”
“I’m just tired.”
“We need to get Merry home,” Rhys said.
Frost knelt by me, with me sitting he was about eye level with me. He put his hand against my face. “Explain to them, Doyle, and then we can get her home.”
“This wand is designed to take magic from others. Merry is right, the magic cannot be stolen permanently from someone, but the wand is like a battery. It absorbs magic from different people and gives the wand’s owner more power, but she would have to feed the wand new power almost constantly. The spell is clever, and harkens back to the older days of our own magic, but it has the marks of something other than sidhe. Our magic, but not.”
“I know what it reminds me of,” Rhys said. “Humans. Humans who were my followers, but who could do some of our magic. They were good, but it never translated exactly.”
“The marks aren’t carved on the wood, or painted,” Carmichael said.
“If it was sidhe magic, then we could trace the symbols on the wood with our finger and our will, but for most humans they needed something more real. Like the fact that our followers saw the marks of power on us and thought they were tattoos, so they painted themselves with woad for protection in battle.”
“But that didn’t work,” Carmichael said.
“It worked when we had power,” Rhys said, “and then when we lost enough power it was worse than useless to the people whom we were supposed to protect.” Rhys looked so unhappy. I had heard both him and Doyle tell stories of what had happened to their followers when they had lost so much power they could no longer protect them with magic.
“Is there a human who could trace those symbols?” I asked. Sitting down had helped.
“With nothing but will and word, I doubt it.”
“What else could he or she have used?” Carmichael asked.
“Body fluid,” Jeremy said.
We all looked at him. “Remember, I learned wizardry back when the sidhe were still in power. When the rest of us could find a piece of your enchantments, we copied it using body fluid.”