Laurell Hamilton: Divine Misdemeanors

“Maybe, but if I don’t talk to him then he’s dead. Something went wrong with your plan to kidnap him and he’s already dead.” My own voice sounded matter-of-fact and not excited or scared either. Maybe after a while so much happens that you just don’t have enough energy to get excited at the beginning of the emergency. Maybe that’s what was wrong with Patterson too.

I heard a sound on the other end that I wasn’t sure of, and then Julian’s voice, “Merry, don’t come. They’re going to …” I knew the next sound, flesh hitting flesh. I’d heard enough to remember.

“I’ve gagged him again. I promise you that I won’t kill him if you come and make Bittersweet big like your Royal.”

“I can’t guarantee that the magic will work for every demi-fey,” I said.

“She’s part brownie. She has the genetics inside her for being bigger, and both her father and her brother can do it. She can be whatever she wants to be.” Now there was emotion in his voice. This he wanted to believe. This was his lie to himself, that there was a way to be with his lady love in a real way that wouldn’t kill her. He needed to believe that, just as I needed to believe that he wouldn’t kill Julian.

“I can try, but Julian goes free whether it works or not.”

“Agreed,” he said, and his voice was back to no affect. I was almost certain he was lying. “Come alone,” he said.

“I can’t do that. You know that.”

“You’ve seen Bittersweet’s work. She’s very creative, Princess.” There was another sound that I wasn’t certain of, and then a sound from a man. It wasn’t a scream, but it wasn’t a good sound either.

I heard the higher-pitched voice of a woman. “Scream for me, human, scream for me!”

Julian’s voice came thick and low with effort. I knew the sound of strain in his voice as he fought not to scream. “No.” He said it calmly and clearly.

Steve’s voice rose. “No, Bitter. If you kill him, she won’t make you big.”

Her voice was a high-pitched whine now. “I’ll just cut this part off. He won’t miss it.”

“If you hurt him too badly there won’t be anything to save,” I said, and it was my voice’s turn to be emotional. Fuck.

“Bitter, you want to be big, don’t you?”

“Yes.” And her voice was already changing. “Oh, God, what have I done? Where are we? What’s happening? Steve, what’s happening?”

“You need to come tonight. No police or he dies. No guards or he dies.”

“They won’t let me come without guards. I’m pregnant with their children. They won’t let me come alone.” We’d already had that talk days ago, and Galen had won this one point. If the bad guys called and wanted me to meet them alone I wouldn’t do it.

Bittersweet was crying, and from the sound of it she was on his shoulder near his ear as she sobbed. At least this side of her personality wouldn’t hurt Julian. In fact, I raised my voice and said, “Bittersweet, it’s Princess Meredith. Do you remember me?”

“Princess Meredith,” she said and her small voice was closer to the phone, “why are you on the phone with Steve?”

“He wants me to make you bigger.”

“Yes, like you did for Royal,” she said and her voice was calming as she talked more.

“He says if I don’t do it he’ll kill my friend.”

“He just wants us to be able to love each other.”

“I know, but he says that you’ll torture my friend if I don’t do it.”

“Oh, I could never …” and then she saw something and started to make little screams. “Blood, blood on me, what did I do? What’s happening?” Her voice got farther away and Steve was back on the phone.

“I need you to meet us tonight, Princess.”

“She needs help, Steve.”

“I know what she needs,” he said, and again there was emotion in his voice.

“Let Julian go.”

“You should have guarded your friends and lovers better, Meredith.”

I started to say that Julian wasn’t my lover but Doyle touched my arm and shook his head. I trusted his judgment and said, “Believe me, Steve, I know we screwed up.”

“Meet us tonight. You can bring two guards, but if I sense that they’re casting spells then I will shoot your lover in the head. He’s human; he won’t heal.”

“I know he’s human,” I said.

“With all the talent in your bed, why take a human?” he asked.

I thought that wasn’t an idle question for Steve. “He’s my friend.”

“Do you love him?”

I hesitated because I wasn’t sure which answer would keep Julian safest.

Doyle nodded.

“Yes,” I said.

“Then come with just two guards and it can’t be the Darkness or the Killing Frost. If I see either of them I’ll just shoot him.”

“Okay, I won’t have them with me as my guards. Now where do I meet you?”

He gave me an address. I wrote it down on the paper that Frost brought from the bedside, and repeated it to him so there wouldn’t be a mistake. Lives have been lost over a transposed number more than once.

“Be here at eight. By eight-thirty we’ll assume you’re not coming and I’ll let Bitter do what she wants to him.” He lowered his voice and whispered, “You saw the last bodies. She’s getting better at killing. She enjoys it now. She’s picked her illustration and it’s not from a child’s book.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s a textbook, a medical textbook image. Don’t be late.” The phone went dead in my hand.

“Did you hear that last part?” I asked.

They had.

“Fuck, I didn’t think Julian was in danger. Why him?”

“That day you snuggled up to him on the street they must have been watching,” Rhys said.

“There were police wizards at the scene. Rhys, he might have been working his own crime scene.”

“Makes sense.”

“And if they were watching the house they know he stayed over and didn’t leave until morning,” Doyle said.

“He’s been living with another man for more than five years. Why wouldn’t they assume he was sleeping with one of you?”

“Because Steve Patterson is heterosexual and he’ll think girl before he thinks boy because of it,” Rhys said.

“A medical textbook. She’s going to butcher him.”

Rhys leaned in the doorway as Frost and Doyle looked at each other. “The question is, are they already at this address or will they move Julian to the meeting spot?” Rhys said.

“Do we tell Lucy? Do we tell the police?” I asked.

The men exchanged a look. Doyle said, “If we don’t bring the police in we can simply kill them. They don’t want me at your side, that’s fine. I am the Darkness. They won’t see me until it’s too late.”

“If we just plan to kill them, it’s easier,” Rhys said, “simpler.”

“What gives Julian the best chance to get out of this alive and whole?” I asked.

They exchanged a look among them again. “No police,” Doyle said.

Rhys nodded. “No police.”

Frost hugged me, and whispered it into my hair. “No police.”

And just like that the plan changed again. We wouldn’t call the police. We’d just kill them. I should have been human enough to be bothered by that, but I kept hearing Julian’s voice over the phone and her voice asking him to scream for her. I kept seeing their victims. I remembered my dream with Royal dead in it. I thought about what they planned on doing to Julian and might be doing to him right this minute. I didn’t feel bad as we planned how to find the address, scout it undetected, and decide how best to save Julian. If we could take them alive, we would, but we only had one priority: Julian as unhurt as possible, and the only dead: Steve and Bittersweet. Beyond that it was all fair game.