Divine Misdemeanors

“I didn’t say that. I said that physically humans couldn’t do this, but there is some magic that might help them do it.”

“What kind of magic?”

“I don’t have a spell in mind. I’m not human. I don’t need spells to use against other fey, but I know there are stories of magic that can make us weak, catchable, and hurtable.”

“Yeah, aren’t these kind of fey supposed to be immortal?”

I stared down at the tiny lifeless bodies. Once the answer would have simply been yes, but I’d learned from some of the lesser fey at the Unseelie Court that some of them had died falling down stairs, and other mundane causes. Their immortality wasn’t what it used to be, but we had not publicized that to the humans. One of the things that kept us safe was that the humans thought they couldn’t hurt us easily. Had some human learned the truth and exploited it? Was the mortality among the lesser fey getting worse? Or had they been immortal and magic had stolen it away?

“Merry, you in there?”

I nodded and looked at her, glad to look away from the bodies. “Sorry, I just never get used to seeing this kind of thing.”

“Oh, you get used to it,” she said, “but I hope you don’t see enough dead bodies to be that jaded.” She sighed, as if she wished she wasn’t that jaded either.

“You asked me if the demi-fey are immortal, and the answer is yes.” It was all I could say to her until I found out if the mortality of the fey was spreading. So far it had only been a few cases inside faerie.

“Then how did the killer do this?”

I’d only seen one other demi-fey killed by a blade that wasn’t cold iron. A noble of the Unseelie Court had wielded that one. A noble of faerie, and my blood kin. We’d killed the sidhe who did it, although he said that he hadn’t meant to kill her. He had just meant to wound her through the heart as her desertion of him had wounded his heart—poetic and the kind of romantic drivel you get when you’re used to being surrounded by beings who can have their heads chopped off and still live. That last bit hasn’t worked in a long time even among the sidhe, but we haven’t shared that either. No one likes to talk about the fact that their people are losing their magic and their power.

Was the killer a sidhe? Somehow I didn’t think so. They might kill a lesser fey out of arrogance or a sense of privilege, but this had the taste of something much more convoluted than that—a motive that only the killer would understand.

I looked carefully at my own reasoning to make certain I wasn’t talking myself out of the Unseelie Court, the Darkling Throng, being suspects. The court that I had been offered rulership of and given up for love. The tabloids were still talking about the fairy-tale ending, but people had died, some of them by my hand, and, like most fairy tales, it had been more about blood and being true to yourself than about love. Love had just been the emotion that had led me to what I truly wanted, and who I truly was. I guess there are worse emotions to follow.

“What are you thinking, Merry?”

“I’m thinking that I wonder what emotion led the killer to do this, to want to do this.”

“What do you mean?”

“It takes something like love to put this much attention into the details. Did the killer love this book or did he love the small fey? Did he hate this book as a child? Is it the clue to some horrible trauma that twisted him to do this?”

“Don’t start profiling on me, Merry; we’ve got people paid to do that.”

“I’m just doing what you taught me, Lucy. Murder is like any skill; it doesn’t fall out of the box perfect. This is perfect.”

“The killer probably spent years fantasizing about this scene, Merry. They wanted, needed it to be perfect.”

“But it never is. That’s what serial killers say when the police interview them. Some of them try again and again for the real-life kill to match the fantasy, but it never does, so they kill again and again to try to make it perfect.”

Lucy smiled at me. “You know, that’s one of the things I always liked about you.”

“What?” I asked.

“You don’t just rely on the magic; you actually try to be a good detective.”

“Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do?” I asked.

“Yeah, but you’d be surprised how many psychics and wizards are great at the magic but suck at the actual detecting part.”

“No, I wouldn’t, but remember, I didn’t have that much magic until a few months ago.”

“That’s right, you were a late bloomer.” And she smiled again. Once I’d thought it was strange that the police could smile over a body, but I’d learned that you either lighten up about it or you transfer out of homicide, or better yet, you get out of police work.

“I’ve already checked, Merry. There are no other homicides even close to this one. No demi-fey killed in a group. No costumes. No book illustration left. This is one of a kind.”

“Maybe it is, but you helped teach me that killers don’t start out this good. Maybe they just pla

“What kind of feel?” she asked.

“You thought film not just because it would give you more leads, but because there’s something dramatic about it all. The setting, the choice of victims, the display, the book illustration; it’s showy.”

She nodded. “Exactly,” she said.

The wind played with my purple sundress until I had to hold it to keep it from flipping up and flashing the police line behind us.

“I’m sorry to drag you out to something like this on a Saturday, Merry,” she said. “I did try to call Jeremy.”

“He’s got a new girlfriend and keeps turning off his phone.” I didn’t begrudge my boss, the first semi-serious lover he’d had in years. Not really.

“You look like you had a picnic pla

“Something like that,” I said, “but this didn’t do your Saturday any good either.”

She smiled ruefully. “I didn’t have any plans.” She stabbed a thumb in the direction of the other police. “Your boyfriends are mad at me for making you look at dead bodies while you’re pregnant.”

My hands automatically went to my stomach, which was still very flat. I wasn’t showing yet, though with twins the doctor had warned me that it could go from nothing to a lot almost overnight.

I glanced back to see Doyle and Frost, standing with the policemen. My two men were no taller than some of the police—six feet and some inches isn’t that unusual—but the rest stood out painfully. Doyle had been called the Queen’s Darkness for a thousand years, and he fit his name, black from skin to hair to the eyes behind their black wraparound sunglasses. His black hair was in a tight braid down his back. Only the silver earrings that climbed from lobe to the pointed tip of his ears relieved the black-on-black of his jeans, T-shirt, and leather jacket. The last was to hide the weapons he was carrying. He was the captain of my bodyguards, as well as one of the fathers to my unborn children, and one of my dearest loves. The other dearest love stood beside him like a pale negative, skin as white as my own, but Frost’s hair was actually silver, like Christmas tree tinsel, shining in the sunlight. The wind played with his hair so that it floated outward in a shimmering wave, looking like some model with a wind machine, but even though his hair was near ankle-length and unbound, it did not tangle in the wind. I’d asked him about that, and he’d said simply, “The wind likes my hair.” I hadn’t known what to say to that so I hadn’t tried.

His sunglasses were gunmetal gray with darker gray lenses to hide the paler gray of his eyes, the most unremarkable part of him, really. He favored designer suits, but he was actually in one of the few pairs of blue jeans he owned, with a silk T-shirt and a suit jacket to hide his own weapons, all in grays. We actually had been pla