Divine Misdemeanors

“I mean they took everything. There’s no spirit, ghost, if you will, to talk to.”

“Not all the dead like to talk to you,” Jordan said, but he was calmer now, either from the fluids or from getting his way.

“True,” Rhys said, “but this wasn’t a choice. They’re just gone. Both of them as if they never existed.”

“You mean whatever killed them ate their souls,” Jordan said.

“I won’t debate semantics, but yeah, that’s what I mean.”

I said, “That’s impossible, because that would mean they’ve been taken out of the cycle of death and rebirth. Nothing but a true God could do that.”

“Don’t look at me for answers on this one. I’d have said it was impossible, too.”

Jordan let go of my hand and grabbed Rhys’s jacket, wadding it in one fist. “They were so afraid, both of them, and then there was nothing. They were just snuffed out like a candle. Poof.”

Rhys nodded. “That would be how it might feel.”

“But you didn’t say how afraid they’d be. Oh, my dear God, so afraid!” He looked up into Rhys’s face as if looking for comfort, or confirmation. “There were wings, something with wings. Angels wouldn’t do this, can’t do this.”

“Angels aren’t my gig,” Rhys said, “but there are other things with wings. What else did you sense, Jordan?”

“Something flew because she was envious. She always wished she could fly. I got that very clearly, as if it had been a wish since childhood, and beauty. She thought whatever was flying was beautiful.”

“And the man?” Rhys asked.

“He’s just fear, all fear, but fear for his wife more than himself. He loved her.” Jordan said it like “loved” should have been in all capital letters.

“Did the woman know what magic they used against her?”

Jordan frowned, and had that distant look that I’d seen on his face before, as if he were looking at things I’d never see. “She thought beautiful and wings, and wished she could fly, and then her husband came in and there was love and there was fear. Such fear, but she died too quickly to fear for her husband much. They killed her first. There was confusion about the man. Two killers, two, one female, one male. They’re a couple. Sex, lust, killing made them feel both, and love. They love each other, too. They don’t know that what they’re feeling isn’t right. It’s love for them, and out of that love they do horrible things, terrible things.” He gave frightened eyes to both of us, looking from one to the other. “This wasn’t the first time. They’d had this feeling together before, the power rush of the kill together before … they’ve killed … before.”

His voice was trailing off, his eyes losing their franticness. His fist began to open, and he fought to hold onto Rhys’s jacket. “Man, woman, couple … killing. Power … they want power … magic. Enough to do something.”

“To do what?” I asked.

His hand slid away from Rhys to flop boneless on top of the blanket. “To do …” And he passed out.

Rhys called out, “Marshal, did you put something besides fluids in the IV?”

Marshal appeared at the doors of the ambulance, giving a longer-than-necessary look at Cathbodua all black and Goth and scary by the doors. Sholto looked much less scary, though I know he wasn’t. He nodded. “I put something to calm him down. It’s standard for psychic shock. They calm down, and the shock goes away. He’ll be fine when he wakes up.”

“He’ll also have no memory of what he picked up from the murder upstairs,” Rhys said.

“I had one psychic stroke out from severe shock. I know you lost some information, but it’s my job to keep him alive and well, and I did my job.”

Rhys was angry enough that he just got out of the back of the ambulance without another word. I think he didn’t trust himself to talk to Marshal anymore.

“Could he really have hurt himself if this had continued?” I asked.

Marshal nodded. “The odds are against it, but I took that chance with one psychic and he’s still in rehab learning how to tie his own shoes. I’m not going to let that happen to another person, not if I can help it. It’s my job to keep everyone healthy, not to solve crime. I’m sorry if it made it harder on you guys.”

I touched Jordan’s face. The sweat was already drying on his skin. He was warmer, and his breathing had evened out into something like normal sleep. “Thank you for helping him.”

“Just doing my job.”

I smiled at him. “Will you transport him to the hospital?”

“I will if the crowd ever thins enough, and I’m told that that won’t happen until you leave, Princess.”

I nodded. “Maybe not, but he needs someone to ride with him to the hospital. His brother is upstairs. I’ll call him, and I need your word that you won’t transport Jordan until his brother is with him.”

“Fine, I give you my word.”

I shook a finger at him. “I’m a princess of faerie. We take the giving of our word very seriously. You seem like a nice guy, Marshal the EMT. Don’t give me your word unless you really mean it.”

“Are you threatening me?” he asked.

“No, but magic works around me sometimes, even here in L.A., and that magic takes your word of honor very seriously sometimes.”

“You’re saying that magic works around you whether you want it to or not?”

I wanted to take it back, because I didn’t want the press to get hold of that fact, but Marshal had helped my friend, and he seemed like a nice guy. It would be a shame to have him hurt just because he didn’t understand what his word was supposed to mean to the power of faerie.

“Talk to the reporters and I’ll say you made it up, but yes, sometimes. You seem like a nice guy. I’d hate for you to have a problem with some stray bit of magic. So you have to stay here until Julian, his brother, gets here.”

“Or something bad could happen to me?” He made it a question.

I nodded.

He frowned as if he didn’t believe me, but finally nodded. “Okay, call the brother. I think the crowd won’t thin out too fast.”

I slid out of the ambulance. Cathbodua fell in at my side in that practiced bodyguard move that I’d begun to take for granted. Sholto mirrored her on the other side. I used my cell phone to call Julian. He’d want to know that his brother was doing this poorly anyway; of course, I’d forgotten that both brothers were powerful psychics.

He picked up his phone about the time I saw him through the crowd of cops. He was already on his way to his brother’s side. I flipped the phone closed and waved at him. He waved back, pocketing the phone he’d been about to answer. They were psychics. They didn’t need telephones.

Chapter Thirty-two

Uther joined us at the barriers along with our uniformed escorts. This pair of policemen was male, one young and African American and the other on the far side of fifty and Caucasian. In fact, he looked like he’d been dropped on the scene by a casting agent who’d filled the order for an older white cop, a little overweight, a little jaded, and very world-weary. His eyes said he’d seen everything and been impressed by none of it.

His partner was a rookie, and seemed bright and shiny in comparison. The young officer was Pendleton; the older one was Brust.

Pendleton stared up at the nearly giant-sized fey. Brust gave Uther the same dull look he’d given everything else, and said, “You coming with the princess?”

“Yes,” Uther said in a deep, rumble of a voice that sounded perfect for his size. He’d taken voice lessons to get rid of the speech impediment that the tusks had given him so that he could sound like he was speaking the queen’s English when he wanted to. He did it mostly because it hurt people’s heads to hear someone who looked like him speaking like a college English professor. It amused him, and most of the rest of us.

“I think with four guards and us we’ve got this,” Brust said.