Лорел Гамильтон - A Kiss Of Shadows

"That is insulting, not just to my client, but to women everywhere, Detective Alvera. This interview is over. I'll expect a police escort to the hospital for the rape kit."

He just looked at her with those pretty, jaded eyes. "A woman can keep saying no, stop, but if she's playing with a man's dick, you can't blame him for getting mixed messages."

I smiled, shaking my head.

"You think this is funny, Ms. NicEssus? The tape may make a case for rape, but it also shows you turning Alistair Norton into so much raw meat."

"One more time, I did not kill Alistair Norton. About the rape, you're either trying to be deliberately insulting to get me angry enough to say something indiscreet, or you're a male chauvinist asshole. If the first is true, you're wasting your time. If the second is true, you're wasting mine."

"I'm sorry that answering questions about a man you left to bleed to death in his own bed at his own house is a waste of your time."

"What kind of man has a house that his wife doesn't know about?" I asked.

"He was cheating on his wife, so he deserved to die, is that it? I know you fey have a thing about marriage and monogamy, but execution seems a bit harsh."

"My client has said repeatedly that she did not do the spell that caused the mirrors to crack."

"But she's alive, Counselor. If she didn't do the spell, then how did she know to take cover?"

"I said already that I recognized the spell, Detective Alvera."

"Why didn't Norton recognize the spell? He's got a rep as a big-time magician. He should have seen it coming, too."

"I told you that Branwyn's Tears effects humans more strongly than it effects the sidhe. He wasn't paying as much attention to his surroundings as I was."

"Where did the spiders come from?"

"I don't know." I wasn't telling him that Jeremy had done the spiders because then they'd start blaming him for the mirrors, or maybe charge us both as conspirators.

He shook his head. "Just say you did it. It was self-defense."

"The only reason I am still sitting here is because I want you, the police, to understand how dangerous this spelled oil can be. If there is more Branwyn's Tears out there, you need to find it and destroy it."

"Lust spells don't work, Ms. NicEssus. Aphrodisiacs don't work. Some magic potion that'll make a woman drop her pants for a man she doesn't want is bullshit. It doesn't exist."

"You'll wish it didn't if it gets out into the general population. Maybe Norton had the only bottle, but just in case there is more of it out there, please look for his friends."

He riffled back through the notebook that had been lying untouched on the table for a very long time. "Yeah, Liam, Donald, and Brendan, no last names. Two of them have faerie ears, all of them with long hair. Yeah, we'll be able to find them, no problem. Of course, they might be a lower priority since they aren't wanted on murder charges."

Eileen stood again. "Come on, Meredith, this interview is over, and I mean it." She looked at both of us as if we were naughty first graders, and we would not dare argue with her. I was tired, and they weren't going to believe me about Branwyn's Tears. I stood up.

Alvera stood, too. "Sit down, Meredith."

"Are we on a first name basis, Alvera? I don't know yours."

"It's Raimundo. Now sit down."

"If," I said, "if I claim diplomatic immunity, I walk out of here and it doesn't matter who's right or who's wrong." I looked at him, and thanks to Jeremy's ward, I was able to just meet his eyes. If I concentrated, I hardly noticed the line of his upper lip.

He looked at me a long time before saying, "What would keep you from claiming diplomatic immunity and walking out that door, Princess?"

"You believing me about the lust oil, Raimundo."

He smiled. "Sure, I believe you."

I shook my head. "No joy, Detective. A lie won't keep me in this room." I was bluffing, sort of. I hoped he didn't call it.

"What will?" he said.

I had an idea. I needed to prove to the police just how serious Branwyn's Tears could be. Sex with a sidhe would haunt a human forever, but a taste of it wouldn't do permanent harm. Some dreams, perhaps, or extra eagerness in the bedroom for a while, but nothing bad. You needed the joining of flesh and magic in a major intimate way to be beyond the point of safety. If we all shared the merest taste, everyone would survive.

"What if I could prove to you that the lust oil worked?"

He crossed his arms over his chest and managed to look even more cynical, which I hadn't thought possible. "I'm listening."

"You believe that no spell can make you instantly lust after some stranger, right?"

He nodded. "That's right."

"Do I have your permission to touch you, Detective?"

He smiled, his gaze roaming over the front of my dress. I hoped he was being deliberately insulting because otherwise he wasn't very bright, and I needed him to be good at his job. With a politically sensitive case like this one, Alvera was either the best they had or the worst. They either hoped for super detective to clear it all up or were offering him up as a sort of preemptive scapegoat for when the shit hit the fan. I'd hoped for super detective, but I was beginning to lean toward scapegoat. Of course, since I was lying about several things, maybe I didn't want him to be good at his job. But I wasn't lying about what he thought I was lying about. Honest.

"A minute ago I was Raimundo. Now you want permission to touch me and I'm back to detective."

"It's called a distancing technique, Detective Alvera," I said.

"And here I thought you wanted to get up close and personal, not distant."

I heard Eileen Galan draw a breath to speak and I stopped her, holding up my hand. "It's okay, Eileen, he can't be this stupid and still have made detective, so he's baiting me. I don't know what he hopes to gain from it."

The humor drained from his eyes, leaving them cold and dark, unreadable as stone. "The truth would be nice."

"You behaved yourself for hours in here. Suddenly in the last thirty minutes you've managed to insult me sexually several times, and you've been staring at my breasts. Why the change?"

Those cold eyes stared at my face for a heartbeat or two. "Being businesslike and professional wasn't getting me shit."

"I'm listed as a rape victim in the initial reports whether you believe that or not. Your conduct in the last half hour could get you on the wrong end of a sexual harassment suit."

His eyes flicked to my still silent lawyer, then back to me. "I've seen rape victims, Princess. I've taken them to the hospital, held their hands while they cried. One girl was only twelve. She was so traumatized, she couldn't speak. It took me nine days, working with a therapist, to get her to name her attackers. You don't act like a rape victim."

I shook my head. "You arrogant… man." I made the last word sound like the worst of insults. "Have you ever been raped, Raimundo?"

He blinked, but his eyes stayed neutral. "No."

"Then don't you dare presume to tell me how I'm supposed to be acting or feeling or any fucking thing. I'm not so broken up tonight. Part of it's the damn spell, but part of it, Detective, is that as rapes go this one wasn't that bad. Eileen said I'd been brutalized. Well, she's a lawyer. I can forgive her the choice of words, but she can't know what the word means. She's never seen what a man can do to a woman if he really wants to hurt her. I've seen brutal, Detective, and what happened tonight wasn't brutal, but just because I'm not bleeding my life away through tubes or my face is still recognizable under the bruises, doesn't mean it wasn't rape."

Something passed through his eyes, something I couldn't read, then his eyes were back to giving nothing away. "This wasn't your first time, was it?" His voice was soft, gentle.