Heart of the Sea: An Others Bonus Story (The Others)

by Warren, Christine

  Daphanie crossed her arms, her lips pursing. “Now, I don’t know Mac very well yet, but he does seem to be awfully protective of my sister. It makes me curious. I wonder what he would do if I just let him know about his little uninvited guest under table three…?”

  “Hey, you know what? It’s gettin’ kinda stuffy under here, ain’t it?” The imp cut her off with grim determination and a forced tone of good cheer. His smile looked more pained than friendly, but she guessed he was at least making an effort. “Whatta ya say we blow this pop stand, eh? You’re new to the city. I could, you know, show you around. Take you to all the hot spots.”

  As an attempt to change the subject, the offer lacked a certain amount of subtlety, but it made up for it in obvious desperation. Daphanie quirked an eyebrow.

  “I grew up in Brooklyn. I think I can find my way around Manhattan. But thanks. Maybe I should just go ask Danice about the adventure the two of you had together. I think that might be easier all around. Have a nice night, Quigley.”

  She placed her palm flat on the carpet and made as if to push to her knees and crawl out from under the table. Quigley’s hand slapped onto her wrist so fast, she thought he might have broken the land speed record.

  “Wait!” Quigley’s eyes narrowed on her face and his expression shifted from fear to calculation. “You might know what streets lead where around here, but ya don’t know the city like I know the city. I’d betcha a case of root beer ya ain’t never been to any of the places I could show ya.”

  The creature stabbed his chest with a stubby thumb. Daphanie considered him for a minute, raking her gaze over his outrageous and frankly unpleasant little form. “I’m not sure I’d want to go to any places you could show me, Quigley.”

  “Is that right? Huh, and here I thought you monkeys always wanted to go to the places ya ain’t been invited to. The places where the real Others hang out.”

  “‘Monkeys’?” Daphanie repeated the insult. It took her brain a second to catch up with the rest of his statement. “Wait, what do you mean, ‘the real Others’?”

  The creature shrugged. “Just like I said. The real Others. The ones like me, not like this bunch of pretty, rich movie stars they got here.”

  “I don’t recognize anyone here from the movies,” Daphanie observed dryly. “I thought Niecie said this was a private club especially for the Others. She said it had been founded and run by werewolves for something like two hundred years and had werewolves and vampires and demons and all sorts of Others as members.”

  “Sure, Vircolac is for Others, if you happen to be an Other with a couple billion bucks in the bank or a family name that goes back to one of the first Others in America,” he snorted. “Sayin’ any Other can hang out here is like sayin’ anybody can live in a penthouse on Park Avenue. Theoretically, it might be true, but it ain’t gonna happen for real people.”

  “Okay, so where do the ‘real’ Others hang out?”

  Quigley shrugged, his gaze running over her with calculation. “We got a few places, but they ain’t what I’d call suitable for most humans. Ya sure ya wanna see ’em?”

  Daphanie thought about that for a moment. Did she really want to follow something that looked like a miniature dev il, a creature she’d met only ten minutes before, into parts of the city she might not know all that well? Did she want to take that chance?

  Part of her held back, wary, which only made sense. She wasn’t stupid, after all, and she had a healthy sense of self-preservation; but another part of her whispered that this was an opportunity. An opportunity afforded her by fate, the same way all the other major opportunities in her life had presented themselves to her—the scholarship to the New School, the first chance to go to Paris, the offer to travel into China, the fellowship in San Francisco, even the little studio in New Hope where she’d settled last. The best things in her life had all come to Daphanie out of the blue, and it had been up to her to grab on and run with them.

  All her life, Daphanie had had a streak of insatiable curiosity. She’d always wanted to know how everything worked, especially people. She craved answers like a drug, and now that she’d encountered the biggest question mark of her life in the form of her newfound knowledge of the Others, her curiosity was threatening to drive her crazy. She needed to know more, and who better to learn it from than an insider? She couldn’t imagine anyone more inside the world of the Others than a—a—a—

  She frowned at the small red monster. “What exactly are you, anyway?”

  Quigley rolled his eyes. “Oh, nice. Nice manners, human. I happen to be an imp. A greater imp,” he emphasized, glaring at her. “And you wanna watch it with questions like that. Not everyone will take kindly to that sort of thing. I mean, how rude is it to ask something like that?”

  “I don’t know.” Daphanie shrugged. “I don’t know anything about the Others, which is the reason I’m actually considering letting you distract me from talking to my sister about you. I don’t know what kinds of Others there are, or what they look like or act like. I don’t know how to talk to them. I don’t know how not to make them want to eat me. Nothing. You might say I’m totally ignorant about them.”

  “You can say that again,” he muttered.

  “So, maybe this is the opportunity for me to learn the basics,” Daphanie mused aloud. “If you show me where they gather and how to react to them, it would go a long way toward helping me understand Niecie and Mac…”

  “Are ya asking for my opinion? Because if ya are, I gotta say that so far yer charm ain’t gonna take ya real far with the kinda folks I know. Most of ’em don’t take kindly to rude, ignorant humans pokin’ noses into their business.”

  She glanced down at him. “But while I’m with you, you can let me know if I do or say something wrong. You know, keep an eye on me.”

  The imp’s eyes widened. “Look, Daphne—”

  “Daphanie,” she corrected. “Like Stephanie, only not. But you can just call me Daph.”

  “Daph,” he echoed. “I ain’t some kinda Emily Post. I offered to take ya to a club or two, not turn you into a human-Other ambassador. That ain’t my shtick.”

  “Then what is your shtick? Hanging out under tables at wedding receptions and hoping no one will notice you siphoning off their root beer? Don’t take this the wrong way but that strikes me as a touch… I don’t know…pathetic.”

  Quigley glowered. “You callin’ me pathetic?”

  Daphanie shrugged.

  “All right, fine.” The imp threw up his hands. “Ya wanna learn all about the Others? We can do that. But ya better brace yerself, and ya better keep yer eye on me, because where we’re goin’, yer sister ain’t gonna be able to come to yer rescue.”

  “Am I going to need rescuing?”

  Quigley sized her up with a jaundiced eye. “Let’s just say that outfit ain’t gonna help ya blend in.”

  “Well, I was planning to change,” she scoffed. “I love my sister, but this is still a bridesmaid’s dress. It’s not like I plan to wear it outside of this room. I’ve got jeans and stuff stashed upstairs. I can be ready to go in fifteen minutes.”

  The imp scowled and snatched up the tablecloth on the side closest to the wall. “Make it ten,” he barked as he ducked out from their little sanctuary. “That way you might catch me before I change my mind.”

  Daphanie pushed to her knees and made to follow the grouchy red creature. “Are you saying you’d leave without me?”

  Quigley laughed. “Leave without ya? And not take ya out on the Other town? Lady, I don’t owe ya that kinda favor.”

  As Daphanie pushed through the service door at the rear of the room, slipping out of the party undetected, she wondered exactly what that was supposed to mean. A club was a club, after all, and she’d been to hundreds in her life. How different could this one really be?

  Born and raised in coastal New England, New York Times bestselling author Christine Warren now lives as a transplant in the Pacific Northwest (she completely bypas
sed those states in the middle due to her landlocking phobia). When not writing (as if that ever happens), she enjoys horseback riding, playing with her pets, identifying dogs from photos of their underbellies, and most of all reading things someone else had to agonize over.

  Visit her on the Web at www.christinewarren.net.