Ким Харрисон - Every Witch Way But Dead

"If I tell you what I know of your father, will you help me with Lee?"

At the ground floor, Quen shifted. "Sa'han—"

Trent's brow furrowed defiantly. "Exitus acta probat."

My pulse quickened and I adjusted the fake fur collar of my coat. "Hey! Keep it English, boys," I snapped. "And the last time you said you would tell me about my dad, I came away with his favorite color and what he liked on his hot dog."

Trent's attention went to the floor of the great room and Quen. His security officer shook his head. "Would you like to sit down?" Trent said, and Quen grimaced.

"Sure." Eyeing him warily, I retraced my steps and followed him to the ground floor. He settled himself in a chair tucked between the window and a back wall, his comfortable posture telling me this was where he sat when he was in this room. He had a view of the dark waterfall, and there were several books, their ribbon bookmarks giving evidence of past afternoons in the sun. Behind him on the wall were four tattered Visconti tarot cards, each carefully protected behind glass. My face went cold as I realized that the captive lady on the Devil card looked like Ceri.

"Sa'han," Quen said softly. "This is not a good idea."

Trent ignored him, and Quen retreated to stand behind him, where he could glower at me.

I put my garment bag over a nearby chair and sat, my legs crossed at the knees and my foot bobbing impatiently. Helping Trent with Lee would be a small thing if he told me anything of importance. Hell, I was taking the bastard out myself as soon as I got home and whipped up a few charms. Yeah, I was a liar, but I was always honest with myself about it.

Trent edged to the end of his seat, his elbows on his knees and his gaze on the night. "Two millennium ago, the tide turned in our effort to reclaim the ever-after from the demons."

My eyes widened. Foot stilling, I took my coat off. This might take a while to get to my dad. Trent met my gaze, and seeing my acceptance of this roundabout way, he eased back in a squeak of leather. Quen made a pained sound deep in his throat.

"The demons saw their end coming," Trent said softly. "In an unusual effort of cooperation, they set aside their internal squabblings for supremacy and worked to twist a curse upon all of us. We didn't even realize it had happened for almost three generations, not recognizing the higher fatality percentage of our newborn for what it was."

I blinked. The demons were responsible for the elves' failure? I thought it had been their habit of hybridizing with humans.

"Infant mortality increased exponentially each generation," Trent said. "Our tenuous grip on victory slipped from us in tiny coffins and the sound of mourning. Eventually we realized they had twisted a curse on us, changing our DNA so that it spontaneously broke, each generation becoming progressively worse."

My stomach roiled. Genetic genocide. "You tried to repair the damage by hybridizing with humans?" I asked, hearing the smallness of my voice.

His eyes flicked from the window to me. "That was a last ditch effort to save something until a way could be developed to fix it. It was ultimately a disaster, but it did keep us alive until we improved the genetic techniques to arrest and ultimately repair most of the degradation. When the Turn made it illegal, the labs went underground, desperate to save the few of us who managed to survive. The Turn scattered us, and I find a confused child about every other year."

Feeling unreal, I whispered, "Your hospitals and orphanages." I had never guessed there was a motive other than public relations behind them.

Trent smiled faintly upon seeing the understanding in my eyes. Quen looked positively ill, his wrinkles sliding into each other, his hands behind his back, staring at nothing in a silent protest. Trent eased forward again. "I find them sickly and dying, and they're always grateful for their health and the chance to seek out more of their kin. It's been a thin line the last fifty years. We're balanced. This next generation will save or damn us."

The thought of Ceri intruded, squelched. "What does this have to do with my dad?"

A quick nod bobbed his head. "Your father was working with mine trying to find an old sample of elven DNA in the ever-after that we could use as a pattern. We can fix what we know is wrong, but to make it better, to bring the infant mortality down to where we can survive without medical help, we needed a sample from someone that died before the curse was twisted. Something that we can pattern the repairs upon."

A sound of disbelief escaped me. "You need a sample over two thousand years old?"

He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. His shoulders didn't seem as wide in the robe, and he looked comfortably vulnerable. "It's possible. There were many pockets of elves that practiced mummification. All we need is one cell even marginally perfect. Just one."

My eyes flicked to a stoic Quen, then him. "Piscary almost killed me trying to find out if you hired me to go into the ever-after. It's not going to happen. I'm not going there." I thought of Al waiting for me, my agreement worthless on his side of the lines. "No way."

An apologetic slant came into Trent's eyes as he watched me from across the coffee table. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean for Piscary to focus on you. I would have rather told you the entire story last year when you quit the I.S., but I was concerned…" He took a slow breath. "I didn't trust you to keep your mouth shut about our existence."

"You trust me now?" I said, thinking of Jenks.

"Not really, but I have to."

Not really, but I have to. What the hell kind of an answer is that?

"We're too few to let the world know we exist," Trent was saying, his eyes on his laced fingers. "It would be too easy for a zealot to pick us off, and I have enough trouble with Piscary trying to do just that. He knows the threat we will pose to his standing if our numbers increase."

My mouth twisted and I pushed back into the leather. Politics. It was always political. "Can't you just untwist the curse?"

His face was weary as he turned to the window. "We did when we discovered what had happened. But the damage remains, and would be worsening if we didn't find every elven child and fix what we can."

My lips parted in understanding. "The camp. That's why you were there?"

He shifted reluctantly in his chair, looking suddenly nervous. "Yes."

I pressed back farther into the cushions, not knowing if I wanted him to answer my next question. "Why…why was I at that camp?"

Trent's stiff posture eased. "You have a somewhat unusual genetic defect. A good five percent of the witch population has it—a recessive gene which is harmless unless they pair up."

"One in four chance?" I guessed.

"If both parents have it. And if the two recessive genes pair up, it kills you before your first birthday. My father managed to keep it suppressed in you until you were old enough to handle a full course of treatment."

"He did this a lot?" I asked, my stomach knotting. I was alive because of illegal genetic manipulation. It was what I had guessed, but now I knew for sure. Maybe I shouldn't let it bother me. The entire elf race relied on illegal medicine to remain in existence.

"No," Trent said. "Records indicate that with very few exceptions, he allowed infants with your affliction to die, their parents not knowing there was a cure. It's rather expensive."

"Money," I said, and Trent's jaw clenched.

"If the decision was based on money, you wouldn't have seen your first birthday," he said tightly. "My father didn't take one cent for saving your life. He did it because he was friends with your father. You and Lee are the only two running about under the sun that he pulled back from that death, and that was because of friendship. He didn't take a dime for saving either of you. Personally, I'm starting to think he made a mistake."