Divine Misdemeanors

Donal nodded.

“And how do you know all this, Rhys?” I asked.

“I have a house outside faerie, Merry, remember? When you’re not allowed to touch anyone else, porn is a wonderful thing.”

I glanced at Doyle. “I thought the queen didn’t even let the guards pleasure themselves.”

“She made that rule for only her most trusted men. With time and distance, I think only the men she thought she might want again someday.”

“Should I be insulted?” Rhys asked.

“No, happy. At least you had a release.”

Rhys nodded. “Fair enough.”

“Did you see them kill anyone?” I asked.

“No, I swear I would have gone to the police.”

“So why are you sure that they did it?”

“It was when I found out who some of the demi-fey were who died. She hated the ones who could hide and play human, and she hated the ones who were more powerful than she was, but only sometimes. Sometimes she was their friend, but other times she seemed to hate them. She really earned her name.”

“What name?” I asked.

“Bittersweet. Sometimes she’d call herself Sweet and she would be, but other times she called herself Bitter, and she was crazy mean.”

I had one of those moments when things fall into place. She hadn’t been our witness, she’d been one of our killers, but why had she hung around? Why not stay away?

“She pretended to be a witness to the first murders,” I said.

“She might not have been pretending,” Donal said.

“What do you mean?”

“If she was Bitter and did bad things, when she came back as Sweet she’d be puzzled. I would never do such horrible things, she’d say. I thought it was an act at first, but at the end I realized that she honestly didn’t remember.”

“Can demi-fey go bogart?” Rhys asked.

“I thought only brownies did the Jekyll-and-Hyde thing,” I said.

“She was half brownie,” Donal said. “She said she was like Thumbelina, born to a full-sized mom, but the size of her thumb. Her sister is normal sized, but looks like a brownie.”

I remembered Jordan’s message as he came out of his drug-induced sleep. “Thumbelina wants to be big.” “What about her dad?” I asked.

“A demi-fey who can be human sized. She’s got a brother like that, too.”

“What’s her sister’s name?” I asked.

He gave it, but it wasn’t our victim. I had another thought. “Did her mother and sister have the surgery to build up their face?”

“They look human, noses, mouths, the whole thing. And the fey heal much better than humans, so their surgery actually looks good.”

“So her mother and sister, though brownies, can pass for human?”

He nodded. “If her father and brother could hide their wings, so could they.”

“She’s the only one who can’t shape change?” I asked.

He nodded. He began to rub his thumb across my knuckles. I fought not to pull away from him, but if he was elfstruck and had become so through just seeing movies, then his whole life had been ruined by some of our people.

I looked at Rhys. “Have you seen the sidhe porn?”

“Some,” he said.

“Could that be enough to make a human elfstruck?”

“If they were susceptible, being a child would make it worse.” He looked at the man in our client chair and he just nodded. He believed it, too.

“Give us Liam’s real name,” I said.

“You believe me?”

“I do.”

He smiled and looked relieved. “Steve Patterson, and it’s just Steve, not Steven. He always hated that his whole first name was a nickname.”

I took my hand back and he let me go reluctantly. “I have to call the police and tell them his name.”

“I understand.” But his eyes had filled with tears and he turned to gaze up at Frost, who still had his hand on his shoulder. It was as if any touch from us was better than no touch.

I called Lucy and gave her everything we had. “You believe this Donal wasn’t involved?”

I looked at him gazing up at Frost as if he was the most beautiful thing in the world. “Yeah, I do.”

“Okay, I’ll let you know when we have Patterson. I can’t believe he’s one of our own. The media are going to go apeshit.”

“Sorry, Lucy …” but I was talking to empty air. She was on her way to catch our murderer and we were left with Donal who had been doomed from the age of twelve to want only us. Who knew that our magic worked so well on film? And was there any cure for it?

Chapter Fourty-three

Patterson wasn’t home or at work or anywhere that the police looked for him. He’d packed up and simply vanished. But a whole human man was easier to find in L.A. than a demi-fey smaller than a Barbie doll. They finally put their pictures up on the news as persons of interest who might have information on the killings. They were afraid of what the fey community might do if the news got out that they were our suspected killers. I had mixed feelings because saving the taxpayers the cost of a trial had its appeal.

That night I dreamed about the last murder scene. But it was Royal suspended from the top of the arch, his body limp in death, and then he’d opened his eyes, but they’d been clouded like the eyes of the dead. I woke covered in sick sweat, calling his name.

Rhys and Galen had tried to pet me back to sleep, but I couldn’t go back to sleep until they woke Royal up and brought him to me. I had to see him alive before I could go back to sleep.

I woke up sandwiched between Rhys and Galen, with Royal on the pillow by my head curled up and looking somewhere between a child’s daydream and a very grown-up fantasy.

He woke with a lazy smile and said, “Good morning, Princess.”

“Sorry I woke you last night.”

“That you care enough about me to worry so is not a bad thing.”

“It’s too early to be talking,” Galen mumbled into his pillow and then snuggled lower in the bed so he could hide his eyes against my shoulder.

Rhys just rolled over and threw an arm across my waist and part of Galen. I could feel that Rhys was awake, but if he wanted to pretend he could.

Royal and I lowered our voices and he moved down the pillow so he could snuggle against the side of my face and whisper into my ear. “The other demi-fey are jealous,” he said.

“Of the sex?” I whispered.

He traced his hand along the curve of my ear the way a bigger lover might caress a shoulder. “That, but to be able to grow in size is a rare gift among us. None here in this house can do it except for me. They are wondering if a night with you would do the same for them.”

“What do you think?” I asked.

“I don’t know if I want to share you with them, but I am like all new lovers, jealous and infatuated. We’ve even been approached by some demi-fey who are not ours. They want to know if ’tis true that I’ve gained such a power.”

Rhys raised his head, done with pretense. “What did you tell them?”

Royal sat up next to my face, wrapping his arms around his knees. “That it was true, but they didn’t believe me until I showed them.”

“So you can do it at will,” Rhys said.

He nodded happily.

“What do you think would happen if we went down to the Fael and you changed in front of everybody?”

“Merry would be pestered silly by other demi-fey wanting to be big.”

I looked at Rhys, and Galen raised his head. “No, Rhys, no.”

“It’s been two days and the police still have no clue where they are,” Rhys said.

“You are not going to make Merry into bait for these monsters.”

“I think that’s up to Merry,” Rhys said.

Galen turned his unhappy face from him to me. “Don’t do it.”

“I think Bittersweet wouldn’t be able to resist,” I said.

“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of,” he said.

“We’d have to run it by Detective Tate,” Rhys said.

Galen propped himself up on both elbows and looked down at all of us. “You woke up screaming, Merry. That’s just from seeing their victims. Do you really want to put yourself out there as a potential victim for them?”