Divine Misdemeanors

She turned and said, “Darkness, the Queen’s Darkness, now exiled to our fair land. I’d hoped that you would both pay court to me. It has been so long since I’ve seen anyone from faerie. I would dearly love it if you would visit me.”

“Your magic will not work on us,” Doyle said in his deep voice.

A little shiver ran down her, making the top of her crown shake, the blue lace quiver, and the diamonds send little rainbows around the room. “Come over here and bring that big, deep voice with you.”

Frost said, “She’s insulting you.”

“More than us,” Doyle said.

I took in a lot of air, let it out slowly, and moved forward past the police. My men moved with me, and I felt that Gilda genuinely thought her spell was working. Now that we’d seen what she did to Bittersweet, and what she had tried to do to my men, we were going to have to take a harder look at how she got the other lesser fey to obey her. If it was all magic and compulsion and no free will, then that was bad.

“Both of you coming to me, how marvelous,” she said.

“Am I missing something?” Lucy asked as I passed her.

I whispered, “A pissing contest of sorts.”

Gilda couldn’t keep acting as if she didn’t see me. She kept smiling past me at Doyle and Frost, as if pretending still that they were coming closer for her. She actually held out her hand at a higher angle than I would need, as if she’d just bypass me.

“Gilda, Godmother of Los Angeles, greetings,” I said, voice low but clear.

She made a little humph sound, then looked at me, lowering her hand as she did so. “Merry Gentry. Back in town, I see.”

“All the royal of faerie know that if another royal gives you your title, you must give them back their own, or it’s an insult that can only be settled by a duel.” That was half true—there were other options—but a duel was at the end of all the other options. But Gilda wouldn’t know that.

“Duels are illegal,” she said primly.

“As are compulsion spells that steal the free will of any legal citizen of these United States.”

She blinked at me, frowning. Bittersweet cuddled against Gilda’s curls with a face gone half sleepy, as if touching Gilda made the godmother’s spell even stronger. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do,” I said, and I leaned closer, so that the light around her dress reflected in my tricolor eyes and moonlight skin. “I don’t remember you being this powerful last time we met, Gilda. What have you been doing to gain such power?”

I was close enough to see the flash of fear in her perfect blue eyes. She masked it, but it had been there. What had she been doing that she didn’t want anyone to know about? I had the thought that maybe she really didn’t want Bittersweet to talk to the police. Maybe Gilda knew more about the murders than she wanted to let on. There were spells—evil spells, forbidden spells—that allowed a fey to steal power from those less powerful. I’d even seen a human wizard who had perfected it so that he could steal power from other humans who had only the faintest trace of faerie blood. He’d died trying to rape me. No, I didn’t kill him. The sidhe traitor who had given the human the power killed him before we could use him to trace the power back to its master. The traitor was dead now, too, so it had all evened out.

Then I realized why I’d noticed the blond wa

Something must have shown on my face, because Gilda asked, “What’s wrong with you? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Do you know an elf wa

“I would never consort with the false elves. They are an abomination.”

I thought her choice of words was interesting. “Do you have a sidhe lover?”

“That is none of your business.”

I studied her offended face. Would she not know the difference between a really well-done wa

I smiled, and said, “Hold that thought.” I started for the door behind her. Doyle and Frost followed like shadows. Lucy called after me, “Merry, where are you going?”

“Need to check something in the café,” I called back but kept moving. The room was thick with people, police of different flavors, and the court retinue that followed Gilda everywhere, but that the police hadn’t allowed into the back room. They were a pretty lot, almost as shiny and spectacular as their mistress. There were still customers at the tables, a mix of human and fey. Some had stayed to have tea and cakes, but others were just there to gawk.

I pushed my way through the crowd, until Doyle moved a little forward of me and people just seemed to move out of his way. When he wanted to he could be very intimidating. I’d seen men step out of his way without even knowing why they’d done so. But when Doyle got me through the crowd, the table that had held the blond wa

Chapter Ten

I went to Alice, who was behind the counter, and asked, “The man with long blond hair, ear implants, and muscles at that table—when did he leave?”

“He left with most of the customers when the police came in,” she said, and her gaze was serious and intelligent.

“Do you know his name?”

“Donal,” she said.

“Donald?” I made it a question.

She shook her head. “No, he’s very insistent about it being Donal, not after that stupid duck. His quote, not mine. I love classic Disney.”

The comment made me smile, but I let it go, and asked the next question. “Is he a regular?”

She nodded, making her black pigtails bounce. “Yep, he comes in at least once a week, sometimes twice.”

“What’s he like?”

She narrowed her eyes and gave me a look. “Why do you want to know?”

“Humor me,” I said.

“Well, he’s one of those men who are rude until he wants to charm a woman; then he’s sweet.”

“Has he hit on you?”

“Nope, I’m too human. He only dates fey. He’s very insistent on that.”

“Is he fond of any particular kind of fey?”

Again, she gave me that look. “Just as full-blooded as he can get them. He’s dated a lot of different fey.”

“Can you give me some names?”

Lucy’s voice came from behind me, “And why do you want the names, Merry?”

Frost and Doyle parted so I could see the detective. She was giving me a look that made Alice’s suspicious look pale in comparison, but then Lucy was a cop. They give great suspicious looks.

She spoke more quietly. “What’s up, Merry? What do you think you’ve figured out?”

The attempted rape and the perpetrator’s death were public record, so I told her my suspicions.

“Do you really think this Donal is the Donald that the client told you about?” she asked.

“I’d love to get a picture of him and see if they could pick him out. It would be easy to hear Donal and just put the ‘d’ on the end to make it a more familiar name, especially if you were scared.”

Lucy nodded. “Fair enough. I’ll see about getting someone to snap a picture, discreetly.”

“Grey’s would be happy to help.”

She shook her finger at me. “No, you are not involved in this from now on. If these are the same people, you almost got killed the last time you came up against them.” She looked up at Frost and Doyle. “Come on, big guys, back me up on this.”