Karen Chance: Death's Mistress

Claire didn’t look like she thought much of that explanation, but she let it go. “What have you been giving him for the pain?”

“Everything. But he’s like me—drugs don’t work and whiskey only dulls it for a—”

“Whiskey?” Claire looked appalled. “Tell me you didn’t just admit to trying to get your baby drunk!”

“I was just trying to rub some on his gums!” I said, offended. “He’s the one who grabbed the bottle!”

“He’s just a baby, poor little thing!”

“I know that,” I said miserably. “And the alcohol didn’t have much effect, anyway—”

“Dory!”

“I know what you’re thinking! I suck at this motherhood thing!” It didn’t help that I hadn’t actually thought of Stinky as a “baby” when I took him on. Someone had been about to kill him, I’d objected and, the next thing I knew, he was mine.

I hadn’t been too worried about it at the time, as he’d been more in the “pet” category in my mind. But experience had shown that there was a definite intelligence at work there—a fact I tried not to think about too much because it freaked me the hell out.

“You don’t,” Claire said patiently. “You saved his life. You’ve given him a home. You just need time to adjust, that’s all.”

“I don’t think I’m going to last that long.”

She smiled slightly. “Everybody thinks that way at first. They’re these little people, with big, trusting eyes and an absolute confidence that we know everything, when most of the time, we don’t have a clue.”

Yeah, that was what worried me. I’d brought myself up, more or less, and look how that had turned out. I didn’t want to screw him up, too, but there didn’t seem to be an alternative.

There were damn few dhampirs in existence, since we could only be conceived in a very short window after a man was Changed. And despite what the movies would have people believe, most newly made vampires weren’t thinking sex. They were thinking blood.

Mircea had been a little different, because he was cursed, not made. He’d failed to realize that the old Gypsy woman who’d been ranting at him had been the real deal for a week, until some nobles tried to kill him and he didn’t die. In the meantime, he’d gone about his usual playboy ways, resulting in a bouncing baby abomination nine months later.

I could count on two hands the number of dhampirs I knew who were currently living, and I wouldn’t even need all the fingers. But as far as I knew, there were no other Duergar-Brownie mixes at all. Stinky was in a class by himself, and I knew from personal experience where that left him.

It wasn’t anywhere good.

Claire patted my shoulder. “Do you at least have a babysitter?”

I nodded to the small, huddled figure in the corner, who was trying to hide behind the rocking chair. “It’s okay, Gessa. You can go.”

Two tiny brown eyes peered at me myopically for a moment from under a fall of dark brown curls. Then their owner jumped to her full height of three foot two and scurried out the door. She never needed to be told twice.

“Olga was doing it,” I said, referring to the very competent secretary I’d recently acquired. “But she’s trying to start her business up again, and she can’t stay all night. And the freeloaders downstairs scatter to the four winds every time I so much as look at—”

“What freeloaders?”

Oops. “Uh, well, when they heard she’d moved out here, some of Olga’s old employees decided to come, too. And since they’re also relatives, she didn’t feel like she could say no….”

“Are you trying to tell me that there’s a colony of trolls living in my basement?”

“I probably should have worked up to it more.”

“At least that explains the smell.”

“That’s Stinky,” I admitted. “He believes in living up to his name.”

“Well, maybe you should get him a better one!”

“I tried. There are no colonies of Brownies around here, but I located some Duergars who live over in Queens. But they just told me they thought he was already well named!”

“He’s a half-breed,” she said sadly, her fingers carding through his hair. “They probably didn’t like him.”

“They did tell me that their people have to earn their names. They just use a nickname before then.”

“Earn them how?”

“They didn’t say. But the elders have to award them, apparently, and you can guess what the odds are of that in his case. When he gets older, I’ll let him decide what he wants to be called.” I pushed up the window, letting in the night breeze. “And it’s not so bad once you get—”

I broke off abruptly. For the second time that night, I saw something that had me questioning my sanity. More than usual, I mean.

The trees on the lot are mostly original, and the granddaddy of them all grew outside that window: a massive, old cottonwood that had to have been more than a sapling when the house was built. Its tear- shaped leaves were dancing as the wind swept along the side of the house, causing a rustling, shifting kaleidoscope of dark green, silver and deep black. And for a moment, in the contrast of light and shadow, I thought I saw…

“Dory—” Claire touched my shoulder and I flinched. She frowned. “What is it?”

“Do you see… anything… in the tree?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light.

She peered around. “What? You mean the squirrel’s nest?”

I swallowed. “I think I need a drink.”

“Well, that’s what I’ve been saying.” She sighed. “Is there no alcohol in this house?”

“I may be able to come up with something.”

“Wonderful. Let’s sit on the porch, though. I could use some air.”

Claire went to her old room to find some clothes, and I went to the kitchen for a couple of glasses from the drying rack. I was just pulling up the trapdoor in the hall, where I keep the good stuff, when she clattered downstairs. She was wearing a green wraparound shirt that matched her eyes and old jeans, and she had a well-behaved baby on each hip.

“I don’t know how long we’ll be able to stay outside. It looks like a storm’s blowing up,” she told me, before catching my expression. “What?”

“You managed to get Stinky into clothes?” The fuzzy armful on her left hip was wearing a pair of bright blue running shorts, like it was no big deal. The last time I’d gotten him dressed, I’d practically had to have Olga sit on him.

“He did it himself.”

I shot him the evil eye. Okay, now I knew he was trying to make me look bad.

I grabbed a couple of bottles from the small space, shut the door and carefully replaced the carpet runner. “I didn’t know we had a smugglers’ hole,” Claire said, following me down the hall.

“There are hidden compartments all over the place. I think your uncle used them for storage.”

Claire’s late uncle Pip had been a bootlegger, and a highly successful one, at that. He’d purchased the place when the captain died and quickly realized he’d hit the jackpot. Two ley lines—the rivers of power generated when worlds collide on a metaphysical level—crossed directly underneath the foundation. The result was a rare commodity known as a ley- line sink, which generated enormous magical power.

It was the equivalent of free electricity for life. Only instead of lamps and refrigerators, he’d used it to power wards and portals, including a highly illegal portal to Faerie. It allowed him to bypass the heavily regulated—and heavily taxed—interworld trade system. And not any old trade either. He’d gone straight for the gold and started trafficking in the volatile substance known as fey wine.

The magical community’s police force didn’t catch on because he didn’t use any of the official portals. The fey didn’t pay him much attention because he wasn’t purchasing the wine directly, just the ingredients, and probably from many different sources. Once he had them in hand, he’d set up a still in the basement and started making magic.